Ragbrai XIV
Cartographer:
Blattel-Britton, Carolyn
Date of Creation:
1986
Number 78 of 500 numbered copies signed by Blattel-Britton. Created to coincide with the XIVth annual RAGBRAI [Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa], 400 mile bicycle touring race from Mineola to Muscatine: the largest Bike-touring event in the world. Commissioned by Jim Peterson of Modern Bike, presumably one of the race’s sponsors, this is an extremely detailed, and whimsical, map of the entire route (John Brattel-Britton, April 2021). “Welcome to Iowa”, is Blattel-Britton’s best known map.
Blattel-Britton's drawings "took the self-described country girl all across the Hawkeye state, made her a darling of the art show circuit and a RAGBRAI favorite and led to one of her signed prints being archived in the State Historical Museum…
Despite difficulties, Blattel-Britton was an achondroplastic dwarf - or "a little person", as she preferred to be called, - or maybe because of them, Blattel-Britton’s work radiated happiness. With the intricacy of a "Where’s Waldo" cartoon and the whimsy of a hand-drawn Adventureland map, Blattel-Britton rendered rich, vibrant, detailed depictions of her chosen subjects, including Iowa standards like the State Fairgrounds, the Capitol, Grinnell College and even her hometown of Zearing.
Her most famous piece is “This is Iowa” a 2-foot by 3-foot map of the Hawkeye state featuring tiny depictions of the claims to fame in hundreds of Iowa towns. She told Offenburger — who is featured as the notable from Shenandoah, Iowa — the piece took 433 hours to finish.
Blattel-Britton was known to tuck hidden messages or funny visual anecdotes into her pieces,“She always got a kick out of putting things within drawings and wondering if people would pick up on them,” her son John said. “Some customers would tell mom that they see something new every time they look at her drawings”” (Crowder, obituary in the ‘DesMoines Register’, 2019).