SANCTUARY PART ONE opens next month!
Please join me for the reception Sat., Sept. 28.
 
The beautiful 52 page catalog will sell there for just $25
and whatever you can donate to UNICEF.
 
Meanwhile SANCTUARY PART TWO has launched.
In Part One, refugees walk on land.
Part Two will be travel by sea on 20 rafts.
The figure in “Prayer for a Safe Passage”
kneels on a sail rigged to a raft.
Is she on her way or is this a memorial?
I begin by drawing using the same materials as Part One: 
charcoal on linen with coffee bean bags and clay hands.
Then I mount the canvas on a “raft”
constructed from foam pool noodles
wrapped in burlap, twine and rope on a plywood base.
Like most of the rafts this is almost 5 feet long and 5 feet high.
Seen from behind, the sail is nailed to a mast 
rigged to the base with rope.
The next raft, “Mama Tried to Bring Us”
expresses the mother’s hopefulness
though her children seem not as sure,
even the one who attempts to play
clinging to the rope (with clay fingers).
This view shows how the sail is roped 
to hooks embedded on the sides
and sticks from my yard became cross beams.
In the third of the first 3 rafts, 
 “Flag of the Travelers” replaces the sail
with an image of those who journeyed far away.
Maybe this is what a flag should be:
the people who live there, not their objects.
These three women have only the bags on their heads.
Finally, at the top of the flagpole
tiny clay hands pray
that travelers on all the seas
will make it safely to Sanctuary.
 

 
17 more rafts will set sail before next summer!