Jonathan & Sandy Parker: Artful mapping and fantastic florals

Written by JENNIFER LONDON | Photographed by JACKIE KENNEDY

Sandy and Jonathan Parker enjoy an afternoon on their porch with their pooch, Olive.

When she hears of the death of a loved one, Sandy Parker jumps into action, baking cookies and arranging flowers to share with the bereaved.

Newnan residents Sandy and Jonathan Parker, both 65, came to discover their artistic success later in life.

For her 50th birthday, Jonathan gave Sandy En Plein Air painting lessons with Millie Gosch. Sandy recalls their son was active in sports when she started taking painting lessons.

“He gave me those lessons and saw me loving it and was very supportive of the whole thing,” Sandy recalls. “It was a busy time, and it was a big deal to take that time for myself.”

A self-taught floral designer and naturally creative, Sandy had a business in Atlanta from 1990 to 1996 designing corporate gifts and amenities.

“You don't know if you can do something until you have an opportunity to try it, and the flower arranging came naturally to me – and so did the painting.”

Today, Sandy plans and organizes parties for family and friends. She still paints on commission and keeps a current project set up on an easel in their home. Says her husband: “She can take entertainment, art, creativity, and encapsulate all of that.”

Seeing his wife embracing Plein Air inspired Jonathan to pursue his own creative endeavors, which resulted in his large map designs that can be viewed locally at the Nixon Centre, at the state capitol building and in government buildings in county seats throughout Georgia.

“One of the joys of doing maps has been the path it's put me on to meet interesting people who I would not have met otherwise,” says Jonathan. “I realize if Sandy hadn’t started her art journey, I wouldn’t have.”

While in high school in 1973, a bicycle accident left Jonathan with a broken neck, which ended any contact sports but opened the door to taking art classes. The trajectory of his life changed as he developed a different perspective. Getting this early exposure to art stuck with him, even though he majored in forest engineering in college and has worked in that field since 1981.

Fast forward to a visit with the Parkers’ son Grayson, who was studying forest resources in college. Cartography was no longer taught in school since everything had gone digital. Gone were the days of going to look at a property, collecting data, and then creating the map.

Jonathan Parker points to a specific path along West Georgia Indian trails, which he has artistically mapped.

“They don’t go out on the property,” says Jonathan. “They rely on these tools while they’ve never visited the site, and that’s what bothered me. They missed the adventure of being a forester.”

It was then that his inspiration was clear.

“Take a property that you’re familiar with, map it, and then animate the margins,” he imagined. “Do a compass rose of scale [a diagram of compass points drawn on a map and subdivided clockwise from 0 to 360 degrees with 0 indicating true north] artfully. Then do the legend and the titles, and then animate it with flora and fauna, something that’s meaningful and tells a story about the property that the owners wouldn’t see.”

A couple of weeks later, Sandy was at Rolling Meadows Farm, in northeast Georgia, helping a family assemble wedding flowers. While talking with owner Betsy Candler, Sandy mentioned Jonathan’s vision, and the Candlers jumped at the opportunity. 

Parker created his first large map and a beautiful legacy for the Candler family.

Mapping another location for a homeowner, Jonathan discovered a noted Indian trail on original maps the State of Georgia had made during the Land Lottery in the early 1800s.

“I kept using historical maps and surveys that showed an Indian trail,” Jonathan recalls. “As I did more maps of people’s farms, I kept running across references to Indian trails and I thought, ‘Someone ought to map the Indian trails.’”

After a friend suggested he use watercolors to highlight the maps, he gravitated to them, Jonathan recalls. The more research he put into the maps, the more he felt it was an injustice to create a map of that point in history and use modern supplies.

Coweta County's Big Oak Plantation Map, private collection

“I use the same watercolors that John Audobon used,” he says. “We try to keep it traditional. The paper is from a French paper mill built in the 1400s.”

On one map he’s made, he used dirt from the area he was mapping.

Fascinated with area trails of Native Americans, Jonathan set out to map them, beginning at a historical marker proclaiming “Noted Indian Trail” on a lonely stretch of a Meriwether County highway.

“I mapped an area where the sign said the Oakfuskee Trail crossed the Flint River and named it Crossing,” says Jonathan. “That map led to mapping the Indian Trails of West Georgia, and I called that map Upper Paths, which led to Arrival, a map of the Creek Nation villages to where the trails went.”

The map titles, says that artist, are somewhat metaphorical: “Crossing to something new, Upper Paths – finding my way – and Arrival; the story speaks for itself: my artistic cartographic journey.”

While commission work for private landowners got him started, Jonathan feels that mapping the lost trails of Native Americans has a broader scope and purpose.

“These maps are more universal, and it's more to educate, protect and preserve these secrets that I’m uncovering as I do my research and put them together in a meaningful piece,” he says. “Now I’ve got something to share with a bigger audience, and it’s things I think are important.”

Through art, Jonathan says he and Sandy both have had their eyes opened to whole new worlds.

“The whole experience of art makes you so much more aware of your environment,” he says. “It taught us to be more visual and appreciative of things we would otherwise not pay attention to.” NCM