Tip: Generating Page Numbers via GPS

Jumping right in, here's a method of using geographic constraint to generate page numbers for a collage project:

GPS coordinates.

Simple as that. Derive your page numbers from the lines of latitude and longitude that pinpoint your exact location on the earth. The information is available for free online - for example, via Google Earth (which requires you to download a small application).

Using GPS - or zip code, or area codes - or any number derived from physical location feels the opposite of arbitrary. You start a project feeling grounded, no pun intended, or perhaps even guided by some overshadowing sense of place - as vague as that might be.

And there can be happy surprises: In a recent collaboration - with Adrian in Northern California and Susan first in a Colorado ghost town then Northern Virginia - we learned that all three locations are roughly 38 degrees north of the equator.

This first recipe written from 37 54 10.16 North 122 32 22.78 West (there'd be little degree symbols after the first numbers if we knew how to include them in the blog).