Photo of the new Germantown map. (Photo: Jesse Husband)

In September, longtime artist Jessie Husband released a new digital map of Germantown, showcasing her appreciation for the neighborhood’s history. It features the neighborhood’s many borders and intersections alongside various famous and historical landmarks and facts, reminding all who view it that Germantown is, in fact, “one of America’s most historic neighborhoods.”

Though the artwork received a good reception from the neighborhood, it didn’t take long for a different kind of artist — the ones who con — to emerge and try to capitalize on her outstanding work.

“To be honest, this has been happening for almost two years now,” Husband tells the Germantown Info Hub. “But what I’ve learned is that it’s not just my work — it’s a lot of artists’ work this is happening to.”

Within weeks after announcing and previewing the map to Germantown residents, Husband began to get notices from residents about duplicates of her work. Sadly, some of these came from folks who purchased a copy of the “Freedom’s Backyard” map from folks who ripped off Husband’s original piece.

Aside from the blatant ethical implications of stealing and profiting from someone else’s work being bad, Husband says these situations like this can also stain the good name of hardworking artists via the quality of the products, which, of course, she — and other artists who are stolen from — have no hand in.

She explains how that may look: “They’ll take a map that’s 12×18 and make it into a puzzle. But the puzzle size is like a 16×20. So all they’re doing is either shrinking it so that everything kind of looks distorted, or they’re just cutting off images, and it looks horrible.”

And how does this potentially damage the artist’s reputation? Well, in some cases, thieves leave the artist’s original signature at the bottom of the stolen work. When people receive the work, they mistake what they’ve received for the real deal, leading them to believe they’ve gotten poor-quality work from the actual artist.

As mentioned above, this isn’t the first time she’s seen this happen. Husband’s Germantown piece is one of many Philadelphia neighborhood maps she has created, the first being of the Gayborhood. Alongside those are maps of nearby beach fronts in Jersey and Delaware. 

Being precautious about predatorial behavior, Husband watermarked the Germantown map before sharing it with the public. It was the first time she’d done this with a piece of her artwork. But she now sees copies online that didn’t have her watermark.

Right now, she’s unsure who or how this could have happened, but she notes that nothing is impossible with the careful use of Photoshop and the rise of public use of artificial intelligence (AI).

Creating this map was a year in the making as she adopted new parts to her process to improve the intention behind the craft.

The process was extensive, from looking at online maps to ensure the streets and boundaries were correct to crowdsourcing which landmarks and facts to include. She then researched those suggestions to fact-check herself. Though she says her process has looked a bit different in the past, as she progressed doing more maps over the years, the artist has learned how vital the content within the maps is to the place she creates them for. 

Though these maps are her artistic interpretation, she still values the opinions of each place’s inhabitants — including Germantown. It’s why she carefully notes what residents say they’d like to incorporate into the map of where they call home.

“The truth is I’m not from Germantown,” Husband shares, noting that being a frequent visitor isn’t enough to say what is and isn’t important about a place. “It’s an important task because I don’t want to misrepresent an area.”

She says that while the internet can give her some basic information about the neighborhood, it won’t “dig deep” as community voices can. Husband says there are nuisances of opinions, based on many factors, about what’s most important for inclusion for any given map.

She thinks about her work through the years. She reflects on the importance of this more extensive but necessary process.

“Some of [the maps] are now seven years old, and there’s new things that are very relevant, and important to the community, and now they’re not on that map. So it’s like, I never thought about all this stuff when I started. And I think that’s why things take me a little bit longer because I want to do my due diligence and get enough research and information from people [living there] to represent it.”

Husband is sure this fiasco has hindered her sales, as folks have reached out to say they bought a product, but she hasn’t received those numbers on her end. And be reminded that the duplicates aren’t just print copies of the original drawing — they are plastered on coffee mugs, made into puzzles, printed on clothing, and more.

She says this is especially annoying because some artists anticipate the most money this time of the year. This is also Husband’s full-time career.

But through the experience, Husband has remained optimistic and grateful for the positive reception from the Germantown community, saying that it’s because of people on social media that she found out her work was being stolen.

“I’m forever grateful,” Husband said, sending her thank you.

She shares some ways folks can help prevent future issues, saying you can always visit the artist’s website — including Etsy shops. She also prompts people to report the use of duplicates to the admins of the groups they’re in.

While the map is not available at any Germantown shops yet, Husband is speaking to some and looking for retail locations willing to sell her map. For now, you can visit Poppy & Bean at 5543 Ridge Avenue in East Falls/Roxborough.

You can also find the Germantown map and other works by Husband on her website at jessiehusband.com.

**NOTE: This story has been updated to reflect the correct spelling of Jessie Husband’s name. We previously had it spelled “Jesse.” We have apologized to Husband for this mistake!