In 1970, Sonya Rapoport bought a second-hand architect’s desk in which she found a collection of antique survey charts from a dam building project on the Snake River in Idaho. Using the “Nu-Shu” language of feminist stencils that she had been starting to use in her earlier “Pattern Paintings”, she worked directly on the found papers in boldly colored acrylic, and soft, atmospheric graphite.

The “Survey Chart” works continued Rapoport’s experiments with using found, pre-printed materials that she had started with her “Fabric Paintings.” She would spend most of the 1970’s exploring the ideas in these works, expanding these small drawings into monumental scale paintings, and experimenting with media such as airbrush.