Personal Architecture

Candace Caston is a collagist originating from New Orleans, Louisiana. In her work, she uses primarily paper and water-based media to explore the memory of place. In 2015, she earned her BFA from the Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta with a focus in painting. Her work has been featured in multiple group shows, installations, and public art projects throughout the South. Candace teaches drawing and painting in Decatur, Georgia where she lives and practices.

In Conversation: Candace Caston, Artist x Kayla Virginia Gaskin, Gallery Coordinator at UTA Artist Space Atlanta

November 4, 2023

KVG: The term “personal architecture,” also the title of this project, has been a foundational element since we first began talking about the concept for this body of work. What does that term contain for you and how, if at all, has it changed you started using it? 

CC: Personal Architecture is about how we connect with place and how we make meaning from the places that we’ve lived in or interacted with. Places become a part of us. The term ‘if these walls could talk’ comes to mind when working in this concept, because I feel like the spaces we live in hold our stories, and our stories become embedded in place. I remember I was thinking about thresholds specifically at the beginning. I was thinking about doorways and windows, and how stepping into a space and feeling the energy of a space transforms you. I feel like the concept has evolved because the focus is not only on thresholds but the space is a whole, and even the neighborhood, the city, and the surrounding areas.

KVG: In your initial proposal for this project, you described “the lived environment and the structures within it as continuations of the self.” With that in mind, can these words be accurately described as self-portraits in your view? 

CC: I think some pieces are self-portraits, definitely. Some of them I imagine as views through the eyes of my child self and some of them I feel are portraits of family members, sometimes a little bit of both. Yeah, it varies but it does feel like some pieces are directly self-portraits.  

KVG: Which pieces are those?   

CC: This one, the purple with the bird, Firebird. I remember vividly, I had this streetlight outside of my bedroom window, and it bothered me at night. And I’d just lay in bed and watch outside of that window— so that window, and then the structure of the bed, and then the neighbor’s house, and the trees became so embedded in my mind. All those nights and memories of just laying there… it felt really vivid to me and I just deeply remember those moments even though it wasn’t really anything significant. It was just me going to bed every night you know, but it was like it became special.

KVG: What was it that made it special? Was it just like the fact that it’s the memory of your childhood like the safety of childhood or…?  

CC:  I feel like it does have a lot to do with safety, for sure. And I guess the memory of being in that space, and just the experience of being a child in the place that I lived, which was precious to me.  

KVG: OK. So that’s your bed? [Gesturing to a detail in Firebird] 

CC: Yeah.  

KVG: Gotcha— This motif is recurring in so many of the works. Almost all of the works featuring a dwelling have that curving, deeply black, highly structured, and linear architectural element that I feel is so quintessential for New Orleans.   

CC: Yeah, I like the repetition of that, I went to sleep to that visual, and it just became a staple for me.  

 KVG: I feel like your continuation of self is in the lived environment, but thinking of this, it’s also in what you are taking into your sensory experience and how that becomes part of almost like an identity marker for that time. It’s interesting to me that a work that’s coming from literally your first-person view is a child is the one that comes to mind first as being the closest to a self-portrait.  

CC: Yeah, absolutely. I feel like most of the works that are from that first person point of view are the ones that feel like self-portraits— even in this Sunroof piece. The feet are my feet, so it’s like the rest of the body is the viewer. This is the self portrait of all those times that I was in the backseat of the car because that was my viewpoint as a child if I would lay down.  

KVG: I feel like another motif in your work is peeking, like the act of peeking. I see that figure [in Green House] peeking through the window, and also in Sunroof. I guess in that work it’s less of a peek and more of a side-eye from a parent, but yeah.  

To pose another question, you wrote in a thesis statement for this show: “clarity of object and space comes and goes, parallel to the process of memory.” How do you balance the fallibility of memory with the impulse to render memories into a legible image? Like, “did I actually remember that or am I just imagining that?”  

CC: So I feel like this is where the material comes to play and the act of collaging helps me to decipher when it is a memory, or when it is imagined because it all depends on what I find. The act of collaging feels very akin to memory for me because I’m  literally digging for the image. Sometimes it’s really fluid, sometimes I am like I need this tree, for example.  So I’m digging to find a specific piece. And other times, I’ll find something that I feel drawn to and I’ll save it for later and I end up figuring out where I need it. And so that’s where that back-and-forth of memory and imagination come in. I feel like the material does that part.  

KVG: So like, as you like, sourcing the images, and like cutting and saving or cutting and pasting as you’re engaging with the images before you make the selection like it, either reveals itself to you or not  

CC: Yes. I’ll have a general idea, and maybe sometimes I’ll have a staple item that I found that would branch out into this larger image, but yeah it’s mostly that back- and-forth of finding and seeking and sourcing.   

KVG: It’s like catching a fish. Like ooh, I got one!  

CC: Yes, it’s all about the feeling.  

KVG: I got you. So when you get a gut feeling like it’s not right, is that part of what helps reveal to you that maybe it’s because it’s not ringing true to the memory and is more so something imagined? OR does it feel like a different process?  

CC: It could be that sometimes, and sometimes it is a visual thing. I think that’s that balance of the imagined and the memory, because the memory piece really starts at the beginning of my process and there’s a part of the process where it does become strictly visual. I know that the memories are there, so I know what I’m looking for. Then I don’t have to rely too much on it being exactly like the memory is supposed to be. 

KVG: That was actually my follow-up to this question— do you feel that sometimes there’s a point of departure in the process where parts that are technically imagined serve the purpose of the memory? I suppose I’m getting at the existence of a relative truth, or the emotional truth of the memory, even if the image you’re creating doesn’t feature, for example, the exact shade of orange a vase you grew up with was.

CC: Absolutely, and I also question that line between memory, and imagined because some of these places I lived in so long ago, I wonder, how could it be that it was exactly this way? Sometimes I go back to New Orleans and I realize a place is how I remembered it and it’s a great surprise, but I am very open to the fact that I could be wrong.  I wanna speak to Green House, because this is a good example of when that happened. I started out, attempting to make the house that I grew up in, and it turned into a mixture of the house I grew up in and my grandmother’s house, I spent a lot of time there as well. The house I grew up in is now green, but it wasn’t green when I was a child. So it became this mixture of present day and past memory and then it became a mixture of two places. 

KVG: Do you feel like it wouldn’t been stifling to have to look back at the reference and be like oh actually, this isn’t green?

CC: Yeah, I feel like the story is lost if I do that, if I try to rely too much on being correct.

KVG: How else do you balance the slipperiness of memory with the creative process?

CC: Color choice. I use dark colors, because I feel like memory emerges from dark space.  I don’t start with a dark color to begin with, but it ends up becoming dark and pieces show through. Colors and the nighttime scenes have a lot to do with the way that I experience memory. 

KVG: I hear you. and I appreciate you lifting that up because that was one of the things that I had  circled [during my review of your proposal] and wanted to, if it came up, to dive deeper into because I’ve been in conversation with other creatives, some visual artists, some poets, about darkness and blackness. Specifically, about black  being like the most “fertile” color that contains other colors and that for that reason. I love the color black for so many reasons but what you just said resonates with me from that place. 

CC: I feel the same. If I was working from a surface of white I don’t know if the memories will be conveyed in the same way. I feel like the memories become clear from the black surface. When remembering somewhere I like to close my eyes so I can l immerse myself in the darkness for a minute and let things reveal themselves. It’s like a dream for me as well. 

KVG: I’m curious now about the dream idea, and how dreams can be charged with connection to the subconscious. Everything that comes up during dreams, and the dreaming process… it’s can actually be scary wading in the waters of the subconscious, and I feel like imagination and memory are all like a part of the same thread… 

CC: I agree that dreams do have that connotation and I’m not sure, but I feel like that has to come from the same part of the brain. That might be the same place and I feel like they [dreams, imagination, and memories] are all connected. 

KVG: I like to imagine so too. My brother is a neuroscientist so I’ll defer to him on the details scientifically, but emotionally there’s a lot of truth to the idea that imagination and memory sit in the same place and drink from the same water a little bit. Thinking of the fallibility of memory, I mean, people say things like “I can barely remember what I had for breakfast” and other little jokes to that effect because memories are almost universally agreed upon as not being reliable. Do you feel similarly? How do you go about retrieving memories in your practice?

CC: I will meditate. Its a  process for me to remember the spaces beginning the series. I had a couple of spaces that like popped to mind and then there was a point where I had to like do more digging internally and like really deeply remember some spaces that weren’t so easily accessible for me. 

KVG: I’m curious like what your meditation practice looks like, as I’ve been in conversation with artists who do a whole burning herbs, sitting in silence, harmonic sounds, calling upon the ancestors thing that really nourishes them creatively— does it look like that for you? 

CC: I will sit in silence, burn sage. I usually don’t use sound, but if I do it’ll be binaural beats and I’ll just ground myself, set an intention for whatever I’m looking for. It’s pretty simple. Sometimes I’ll do it outside of my studio more comfortable space but it depends sometimes I’ll do it in my studio like really quickly and maybe not even be as ritualistic about it and just like kind of close my eyes and try to clear my head and get to that space. 

KVG: I’m also curious in terms of the spaces in your memories that felt really accessible from the jump, or that felt like you could tap in like kind of from the top of the mind— as opposed to having a sink into presence and and really tap in via meditation and stillness. What are the differences between those spaces?

CC: I feel the spaces that were easily tapped into have more detail and they might’ve even developed faster for me. I guess when the works get abstracted I’m getting less information and those works have more negative space or even more darkness.  

KVG: I wanted to know more about the depth of your connection to the recurring theme of personal architecture, the motif of the doors, of course thresholds, of course vehicles and windows, and to a certain extent mirrors. It’s really the rearview mirrors of it all ,mostly because they have eyes like peeking through them… but I wanted to ask if you would just elucidate a little about how these symbols became so potent for you. 

CC: Yeah, those symbols come from my dad who is a builder and a carver. He built  houses and he built half of our house. Our house was a one-story house for years and he built an entire second floor. He was always tinkering with its structure. I’ve seen a lot of doors and windows laying around in our backyard. It was my dad’s ability to build houses to edit our house,  he was constantly editing our house and adding things and change colors of things.  For the cars, I feel like all of these elements have to do with my family members, they are obsessed with cars. Every single one of them is obsessed with cars and I guess I am too but in a different way, I love to record cars.  And the mirrors, I feel like that the personal part where I’m like seeing myself in these elements of many structures. 

KVG: Yeah, there’s something about the reflection of someone’s gaze in a rearview mirror that really grabs me.

CC: I find it really interesting too to be able to see different perspectives at once. In my works, I like to add the aspect of being in different spaces at the same time. Being able to see behind you, in front of you, and above you. It adds to the memory of the place.

KVG: I did not think of it that way until just now, and it really unlocked this for me because you’re literally allowing the viewer to see both forwards and backwards at once.

CC: Yeah yeah, mirrors also bring up themes of  time traveling for me. I’m traveling to the past to find these memories and in this mirror [gestures to Tunnel Vision], it feels like my present space. Outside of the windshield in front of you is the past, so it gives me this ability to time travel. There’s a Galactic element in the works too. 

KVG: Yeah, and then travel in itself is such a big motif in your work. There’s something about the gesture toward mobility. How do you reconcile the personal architectures of liminal, vehicular spaces with spaces that are more fixed in location, like a dwelling? 

CC: I feel like they’re both structures with windows, that’s kind of how I look at them. I spent a lot of time in vehicles when we traveled from New Orleans to Georgia but I really don’t think that I like separate the two that much, because I feel like they were both shelters that kept me safe.  They kind of serve the same purpose. The fact that the vehicles were able to move is no different than moving to a different house. They are one in the same, a shelter with windows.