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| 11/21/2008 4:24:00 PM | Email this article • Print this article | Love for collecting evolves into museum exhibit for Martin
MARCIAL GUAJARDO
Managing Editor
Ever collect so much of something that you wish you could do something with it?
Don Martin did.
Martin, owner of a local public affairs office, began collecting maps of Texas and the Americas after he sprouted an interest in Republic of Texas currency. Martin eventually found himself scouring eBay and picking up new maps from a growing number of collectors he became familiar with.
One day, he found himself in a conversation with Chris Dyer, director of The Williamson Museum in Georgetown, which Martin had once donated a Georgetown postcard collection to. Excited about sharing his map collection with someone who would appreciate it, Martin asked Dyer if he'd ever like to view the set.
Time went by before Dyer finally stopped by Martin's office, but when he did, he was pleasantly surprised. Martin offered to lend the set to the museum for display and Dyer quickly obliged.
Now, about a third of the set hangs on display at the museum. Museum officials on Nov. 7 hosted an exhibit grand opening gala to kick off its stay, and it will be available for viewing through May.
"It's not that big a deal but I am really glad they are somewhere people can see them," said Martin, owner of Austin-based Don Martin Public Affairs, which worked on the La Frontera multi-million-dollar development in Round Rock. "Even if you're not a history buff, once you get up close [to the maps], it really can be interesting."
Museum Curator Lisa Worley agreed with Martin, noting the details add more than artistic elements to the maps. Worley, who handpicked about a third of Martin's collection for the exhibit, lost herself in the set, which features pieces cartographers created between 1685 and the mid-1800s. Maps no only show Texas before its boundaries were set in statehood, but California as an island. One map even leaves a blank spot in the yet-unexplored area where Washington and Oregon are now situated.
"It's a piece of art but there's two different things here," Worley said. "You can learn about history and enjoy the art."
Martin, who said he focused on the time period because of his interest in the Republic of Texas, said his favorite piece is one showing Texas as a nation.
Another map shows a rectangular piece of land above Texas - now part of Oklahoma - that, at the time, was simply declared "Public Land."
And, as visitors to the museum are sure to do, Worley found herself looking for her hometown in Arizona on the sephia-toned papers on display.
"Is my home city on there?" Worley proclaimed as she stood near the exhibit Wednesday. "It's not."
The maps range from simple to elaborately sketched - with one showing renderings of a South American scene, complete with waterfall and stepped pyramid, on one side of a map of the Americas and North American wildlife on the other.
Some are in English; others are in French. Dyer noted the maps cover a quickly changing period of years, in which land often changed hands between nations.
"All these countries were vying for these claims," Dyer said.
Martin, who is working on a book on Austin history as seen through postcards he collected, researched each of the maps on display, saving museum curators from hours of background work, Dyer noted.
The Central Texas Area Questers, a local nonprofit arm of a North American club of collectors, underwrote the exhibit, which is free to the public.
The museum is located at 716 S. Austin Ave. in Georgetown. For more information, contact Lisa Worley at 943-1673 or visit williamsonmuseum.org.
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