With the publication of Shelter of Man in Guerrila Cartography’s forthcoming Shelter: An Atlas, I can officially call myself a guerrilla cartographer. I’m not just an artist anymore. My relationship with cartography developed while studying architecture in Australia. I might have caught the antipodean point of view, and it became a habit. Australia and architecture influenced how my visual work responds to place and landscape. In a map, shelter is shown as integral with the earth’s surface. The built environment and markers of our habitat are geographical. It is wonderful to have discovered a niche for my work related to the view that architecture is a constructed map of human activity.
Study model for the site proposal of an artist retreat, composed of individual live/work pavilions and shared amenity (c.2000). Student work produced while studying architecture at the University of New South Wales during an on-site design studio at Bundanon (design tutors: N. Murcutt and A. Morandini).
“Dregs 2” is a work on paper reminiscent of scattered settlement and ways between places (c.2009). Private collection.
The conceptual map Shelter of Man presumes that shelter is the human use of space that supports life. The work depicts settlement patterns of built form, occupied by humans and their activity. Shelter of Man uses orthographic views of plans and sections to show footprint and enclosure. Territorially, a footprint is an outline of claim and occupation. An enclosure shows the relationship between interior and exterior. Maps have legends that perpetuate some tradition of graphical lore. They are used as keys to decode a visual representation. In publication, the hand-hewn illustration Shelter of Man appears with alchemical symbols denoted by the words “time” and “scale.” I created this legend for a viewer to use toward their interpretation of the map’s content. The artist’s translation is:
“Legend tells that time precipitates and scale sublimates”
In my creative process, making a map or plan begins with the subject space/area. Answering the question of scale is one of the first decisions. The conceptual scope should fit in the picture. The scale impacts the representation of detail and it frames a viewer’s consideration. I chose to illustrate Shelter of Man by hand. A physical medium requires more discipline because of the material limits of the page. A sheet of paper has a fixed size, so it restricts the content, which is measurable or quantifiable. Although the primary message of Shelter of Man is not about quantities, the spaces shown needed to clearly portray human use. Shelter of Man is the first work I’ve created with the intention to explicitly imply the daily activity of human settlement, without designing architecture.
“Aunt Charlie” is a work on paper by the artist exhibited at the Dallas artist co-op gallery 500X (c.2009). Collection of the artist.
I’ve mapped conceptual spaces throughout my career. In most of my art maps, I use relative position and scale of figures/shapes to proffer a narrative for the viewer. When I look at my own maps, I interpolate a visual order, and vicariously travel between the figures. In my art maps, I make annotations for an improvisational choreography of a viewer’s observation; this has to do with how a viewer’s eye moves across the page. I use line quality and pattern to allude to the perpetual phenomena between nature and human intervention. As an architecturally trained artist, I recognize that architecture is a pattern of occupation. I believe that at a greater scale this observation holds true. An urban form is, in a way, a map itself; it is a map of human culture. The creative progress is part of the visual folio at www.cathgates.com.
“Making Tracks” is a work on paper (c.2008). Superimposed plan and section views of natural and man-made marks. Gift from the artist. Private collection.
Site drawing showing the plan and section of a cave (1999). Site analysis. Student work produced while studying architecture at The University of Texas at Austin (design tutor, J. Birdsong).
A map tells a story, just as an illustration does. An architectural drawing shows multiple views of one subject: elevations, sections, plans, rendering. Shelter of Man is a series of vignettes that depicts shelter or aggregates of shelter. The work shows multiple views for some of its subject matter. The vignettes invite a viewer to recognize the evolution of forms that are used to shelter. In the series, different scales are used to illustrate a pattern of social habitat. Each scale suggests a different density of human activity. The sheltering (urban) forms serve social function. The vignettes show either the footprint of structures or interior spaces.
The cave is remembered as an origin of shelter and the subject of the first diptych in Shelter of Man. A cave is an interior space that is protected from deterioration due to exterior elements. Shelter is this notion of a place that protects from the elements, where there is amenity for daily habit. The shape of shelter shows our advancement. Urban forms are tangible patterns of our social progress and adaptation. The composite of vignettes in Shelter of Man show differences of built form, singularly and plurally, alluding to different social developments. Shelter of Man addresses shelter and settlement. Settlement multiplies shelter, appearing as an imprint of growth. The sheltering habitats in Shelter of Man have different occupational densities and are drawn at different scales.
“Shelter of Man” is a work on paper, a triptych of diptychs (2020). Diptychs from left to right: “The Elements,” “More Than One,” “Context in Defense.” Published in “Shelter: An Atlas” by Guerrilla Cartography.
Urban settlement, the grand catalogue of shelter, is an aggregate of abstract marks that trace the impact of events. It has been said that “a map is a plan.” This has become a profound truth about maps and influential in my visual work. The best I can do with the thought is to see a map as both an end and a beginning. A map shows the outcome of past events and the starting conditions before the future. A plan has more direction than a north arrow can show. Time and scale are concepts that are relative to space and they substantiate place. The publication of Shelter of Man has validated my artistic application of architectural and urban subject matter.