The Provenance of Geospatial Art Printed by Imagekind

Provenance, from the French provenir, “to come from”, means the origin, or the source of something, or the history of the ownership or location of an object. Between February of 2007 and May of 2009, I used the printing service Imagekind to sell my maps on-line. Over the years I sold or printed 56 maps and generated over $1,000 in sales. I stopped using the service to sell directly to customers because I was continuously bothered that I was unable to find out enough information about how my maps were being sold. Back then, I would receive an e-mail informing me someone purchased a map, then I’d log in to the Imagekind website, and see that someone purchased X map and I made $ on the commission— thats it. What I was not told was what material the map was printed on, the size of the print, how the map was framed, and where the purchaser was located. In essence, I was unable to discern very much information about my customers and instead of being kept in the dark, I decided to deaccession my collection from the store. Last week I decided to log into my account and discovered that Imagekind had updated their administrative controls. One of the new options was the ability to track sales better, so I decided to upgrade and to my surprise I was able to download my entire sales history with all the nuanced details I had been longing for.

Below is the complete listing of every printing by Imagekind in reverse chronological order of purchase. The listings which have the commission at $0.00 are the maps that I ordered myself. Click on the Title of the map to view it’s original blog entry.