What do our places mean to us?

What do we identify as our home?

Our beds our home. The warm couches we sit on with cats on our lap our home. Messy tables and cluttered counters are home. The scuffs in the hardwood where you probably should have lifted the cabinet instead of pulling it are home. 

The physicality of home manifests itself in many ways and isn't a new concept to be dissected by artists. The interiors of homes can reveal a great deal about the human experience. When thinking of home the experience of a house's interior likely comes to mind; the smells, the familiarity, the rooms we lived our most private moments.

Tracy Emin's "My Bed" from https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/oct/27/tracey-emin-my-bed-violent-mess-sex-death

Maurizio Cattelan's "Bidibidobidiboo" from https://art.art/blog/10-artists-on-home

But the exteriors of our lives also make up our concept of home. Our hometowns can become part of our identity whether we like it or not. The architecture, or lack thereof, that surrounds us become our understanding of the outside world. The faces of other people's homes and buildings become landmarks in our life. 

Architecture is mathematical, precise, analytical, purposeful. It functions as a purposeful object we can trust that won't collapse on our heads. Our memories operate very differently from architecture. Memories fluctuate, they come and go, and what events we remember is hardly ever purposeful. Memory can also be faulty, how much we can trust our memories depends on how they have evolved over time. 

So how can architecture and memory intertwine, especially if the exterior experience of buildings can manifest into our understanding of home? 

Architecture is made up of lines. Lines on lines on lines that connect at corners and defy gravity to stand. The lines reveal themselves more when these buildings are drawn - when an object is reduced to lines. As our eyes travel over our surroundings so do the lines, visually creating a kind of map when put onto paper. 

188 Ontario Street, St. Catharines. 

James Street, St. Catharines.

When I draw these houses, they become more of a record of experiencing these buildings than a record of the buildings themselves. Lines fluctuating, intertwining - mapping my memory of that moment in time, recording my experience of home.