Jennifer Starkweather: Spechome series

I am interested in using the map metaphorically to create a personal history that, although rendered from an actual physical location, takes on a shape of its own. I am interested in crossing the tenuous boundaries between what is real and what is imagined, what is felt and what is known and where the unreliability of memory encourages a range of interpretations and manipulations. I am curious how mark-making while depicting something concrete, shifts to a more intuitive realm, where I am able to act out my own diversions, dreams and memories.

Drawings become maps that tug at my memories, flashing miniature life histories before my eyes.

My work has varied from documenting wind currents that occur in specific and cherished locations to mapping the floor plans of houses that I have lived in. Presently I am interested in the idea of a “spec home” as an intuited place or moment that I have just not yet occupied. Working from memory in these drawings allows me to create, deviate from and imagine surfaces, landscapes, trees, objects and connections that are perceived and familiar. With the physical act of drawing dots, scratching lines, making smudges, and poking holes, I am able to create an annotated catalogue of my daydreams, memories and ruminations.