Places I Have Lived: 1st Edition
In September 2021, I decided to draw my childhood home on a whim. What resulted was a digital illustration that had a dynamic woodcut-and-watercolor aesthetic that I quite enjoyed, so I decided to turn it into a series and draw every place that I'd ever lived in (including my college dorm, and a friend's live-in art studio, and other temporary residences). Unexpectedly, while I worked on each of these, I was able to get into the mindset of my own past selves. There were some homes that were difficult to illustrate because of negative feelings and memories attached to them, and some that I was able to give extra loving care and attention because of their associated nostalgia. This series will be in progress as long as I keep moving and until I unknowingly find the home where I will live for the rest of my life. I am certainly not the first person to illustrate houses, but these are uniquely mine. An updated version of Places I Have Lived was entered into ArtPrize in 2023.
Places You Have Lived/Places We Have Loved
Once I began illustrating my own homes and posting them to social media, they attracted other people who had an interest in commissions. It turns out an illustration of a home is meaningful to a lot of people, and most of the commissions below were intended as gifts for others, rather than a memento for the person who placed the order themselves. Find out more here. After I ran out of my own homes to draw, I wanted to continue working in this style just for fun, so I also began illustrating some of my favorite places in Grand Rapids. This idea, dubbed "Places We Have Loved," was borne from a typo, because often when I would post my homes to Instagram, my phone would autocorrect "places I have lived" to "places I have loved." As a concept, Places We Have Loved may be iconic public places, other people's homes where I've spent meaningful time, or commissions by businesses. Prints of select places are available at studiohromi.com/shop.
