The Final Line

On my very first post to this blog, I asked, "What do our places mean to us?"

Our places, our spaces, and our architectural containers all play a part in our existence. What they mean to us is a personal experience available only to ourselves. 

Through this past year, I have approached this question through the means of art and drawing. As I conclude this particular project, I am now left to ask, what does it all mean? And further- why does any of it matter?

As the creator of this work, the drawings I have made are an output of my personal experiences and how I have come to visualize architecture, and by extension, the world around me. Once my drawings are released into this world, whether that is through my zines, this blog or my work being displayed, they are left to be experienced by those who find them. Art is an individual experience, so is our relationship to space, and so is how we perceive the architectures that "junk" up that space. 

I said before, "... the exteriors of our lives 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". This sentiment stayed at the root of how I navigated this project. The work I did in my sketchbook acted as a kind of journal. To collect the imagery that ended up in the sketchbook I spent a lot of time walking around the downtown St. Catharines area and other places such as Port Dalhousie and Thorold, making quick sketches in my book and taking photographs to refer to later. Both the sketches and photographs were capturing memories and initial impressions of how I encountered the buildings around me. They were a means of filtering through the "junkspace" and honing in on the architectural treasures that beautified these cities. The reactionary nature of the sketchbook sketches informed the undertaking of the more "official" artworks of the project. The larger page works offered me a bigger surface area to articulate the technical aspects of my drawings, with a stronger focus on composition, line density, and the overall atmosphere the drawing could create. The zines supported multiple reproductions of my drawings in a small, tangible form that could also be dispersed publicly. Posting my zine around parts of downtown St. Catharines let me integrate my work into the spaces that informed it. 

Despite the more conceptual and analytical aspects, the heart of this project stems from something quite simple: a basic fascination with architecture and how the lines they create can be explored visually in drawing. There is a certain peace that comes with the consideration and mindfulness of our surroundings. Using our own creativity to visually interpret these surroundings is a basis in art that lets people connect to and understand our relationship to the world around us. Beautiful or not, there is always something there to see, should you know where and how to look. 

The buildings in our spaces contribute to both an abstract and concrete idea of home, contributing to the identity of who we are and where we come from. The act of drawing and creation of visual art is merely the reflection of that experience. At the end of the day, I am just very thankful I get to experience the beautiful buildings that pepper the region I am from and I will continue to seek out and admire the diamonds in the rough, one line at a time.