JOURNAL 6
We emptied our well and…
…carrying nothing but water…
…we walked away from home.
We passed by places that once were familiar
and places we no longer recognized.
The sand blew in our eyes.
When it cleared, we saw…
…so many people walking like us.
I saw a girl I knew from school.
We didn’t speak.
No one spoke.
We had to save our breath…
…to keep going.


*
To be continued…
JOURNAL 5
We grew food here…
…even after…
…the rains stopped coming.
We had a river.
I could still see it…
[The grave marker 1868-1939 belongs to the old man pictured later.]
…if I closed my eyes.
Maybe we could ask for help…
…from our neighbors…
…but they had to leave too.
He built this farm long before I was born.


[This is the man buried along the river, earlier.]
We couldn’t leave.
But if we stayed we would die.


*
To be continued…
JOURNAL 4
I wanted to go home
but we had no home to go to.
Walking, walking, walking all day…
…and all night into an unknown.
Hope
Hope was all that kept us going.
Far in the distance…
…we began to see the tents 
of the refugee camp.
END OF CHAPTER ONE


*
Chapter Two begins soon!
JOURNAL 3
The long road led only…
…away.
How much longer could the truck keep going?
We started walking alone in the dark.
Then hundreds of people were walking with us.
I carried my baby and my bag.
I could not feel my feet.


*


To be continued next month!
JOURNAL 2
The night before my birthday
mama woke us in the dark.
She said to pack…
…only what could fit in one suitcase.
We took the keys. We left the photos.
We were going to drive someplace safe.
Our neighbors…
…ran into the street…
…and reached for each other.
We took only what we could carry…
…and climbed onto a truck.
*


To be continued next month!
JOURNAL 1
After the Sanctuary installation ended in February
the voices continued.


So I began their “journals” 
with paraphrases inspired by actual memories.


I stained thick Arches paper with coffee and charcoal
to reflect the resilient grit of the refugees 
and folded the paper to make the front and back 8.5” x 11”
and a centerfold 11” x 17” = 3 images each page.


These are the first 9 steps of what will be a long journey.
“How could a girl like me reach the other side of the world
where all dreams are possible?”
“I looked at the horizon, searching
for a measure of peace in the hills.”
“My hands helped me not to cry.”
“Mom said don’t run around.
If you get lost we will never find you.”
(This is how a stained centerfold looks before the drawing.)
“It was gone – my home, my life, all of it –
Nothing but rubble, nothing but dust.”
“There was no help coming.”
Screaming. Someone was screaming
Get out get out get out get out get out get out
“We thought we would go back.
That was years ago.”
“Even today I can see the ashes falling.”


*


MORE PAGES COMING NEXT MONTH!
(Spoiler: The people will make it in the end.)
SANCTUARY 25
INSTALLED! Finally, all of SANCTUARY can be seen
from Jan. 20 to Feb. 13 at TAG Gallery.


These installation photos by LA Art Documents
give you just a glimpse of Part 3. 
Entering the rooms at the back, these two girls greet you.
Notice the white footprints on the floor.
They walk all the way from the front door
suggesting the journey of the refugees.
The canvas behind the girls is an abstract painting.
“Mama Holds Up the World” frames the theme
on the opposite wall amidst bark and discarded bottles.
Behind people warming their hands in a shelter
you can see the background mural 
and the abstract painting that forms their roof.
Beside it, a child in a pink hoodie
watches her mother hold her face in her hand.
What can they do?
Next to them sits this barefoot man
with a one-room school in the background. 
Some of the school-children seen closer.
The other half of the room is a clinic
where these patients wait for help from
Doctors Without Borders
for which the show aims to raise funds.


This brief tour is only a hint of a huge display
filling 4 rooms in 5,000 sq ft.


Please visit if you can or join the zoom talks
 Thursdays 1/28, 2/4, 2/11 at 3 PM:


Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84388634425…
SANCTUARY 24
After 3 years in development, just a month from now 
ALL of SANCTUARY
will be installed – 50 elements in 5000 sq. ft –
at TAG Gallery, 5458 Wilshire Blvd., LA 90036
Jan. 20 to Feb. 13
Meanwhile, “The Faces of Sanctuary”
10 small drawings of the figures in the show
are available in the holiday sale at TAG.
Each is just $250, matted, framed, ready to hang.
Visit or contact the gallery at (323) 297-3061
or ask me about getting any of these
or 27 more faces that will be available
at the big Sanctuary show.
Proceeds from these sales benefit
Doctors Without Borders
I wish you all a healthy holiday
and I hope to see you, even if only virtually,
for the big show in a better new year.
SANCTUARY 23
While Sanctuary Part One continues at Gallery 825 until Dec. 4 –


I keep working on Part Three including this big drawing.
Yeah, it’s invisible if you’re reading on your phone
but it’s 6 feet wide and 5 feet high 
so please come see it in January!
Not quite an homage to Pieter Breugel’s 
“Children’s Games” painted in the year 1560…
…still this drawing is rich with details of daily life.
Remember these two little girls?
Now they will greet visitors to Part Three.
Drawing them in the landscape is a wink to “meta” reality.
Within Sanctuary Part Three, a symbolic clinic honors 
Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres),
for which the show will raise funds.
I made this collage of their posters for the clinic tent.
Figures line up for the doctors, including this kneeling dad.
Anyone who ever held a screaming infant will recognize this face.
This older couple waits in line.
I love his tenderness supporting her.
Lying inside the clinic, a patient wears a mask we recognize now.
She was the first walker when I started Part One in 2018.
But her face is bas relief, not drawn, and I decided to draw instead
so I set her aside.
And now she’s revived 3 years later in Part Three.




Meanwhile, Part One is still up at Gallery 825  
open by appointment: (310) 652-8272
SANCTUARY 22
Part ONE of Sanctuary 
will reprise in a solo show 
at the Los Angeles Art Association / Gallery 825
from Oct. 30 to Dec. 4…
…just as Part TWO comes down at TAG Gallery on the 31st.
What a time, with everything else going on!
Apart from visiting the gallery, the best way to see Part Two
is this wonderful video by LA Art Documents:
https://youtu.be/dVdXWs22f-M.
Meanwhile, please enjoy some Part Two installation images.
“Holding On”, 47” x 72” x 64”
“Prayer for Safe Passage,” 49” x 36” x 64”
“Grandma Tried to Dry Our Clothes,” 36” x 36”x 36”
“What Is Left,” 26” x 75” x 88”
Installation view of Sanctuary Part Two
“All That Matters” from Sanctuary Part One, 84” x 36”


No reception is planned for Part One at Gallery 825 
but it is open by appointment:
(310) 652-8272
825 N. La Cienega Blvd., LA 90069
Please visit if you can.