(Portland, Maine)

Not to be re-entered or reclaimed

pen and white charcoal on toned paper
24" x 18"

My drawing is about the nostalgic pull of a childhood home met with the realization that one would rather not go back there, after all. The house in this drawing is in Kendallville, Indiana, the first home I lived in. I wasn't always happy there, but when you're a kid you accept your reality and make the most of it. I recently drove past before moving out of state and found it more run-down than I remember, the rocky hill no longer the mountain my sister and I spent summer days scaling.

The title is inspired by a poem by Louise Gluck, about her childhood home:

"Not to be reclaimed or re-entered
but to legitimize
silence and distance,
distance of place, of time,
bewildering accuracy of imagination and dream -
I remember my childhood as a long wish to be elsewhere.
This is the house; this must be
the childhood I had in mind."

Instagram: cjhamilton_art