My Sanctuary....

When this challenge was posted, many thoughts went through my mind... first to bird sanctuaries, those associated with 'religion' and hiding spots as a child. When hurt or frightened, the 'sanctuary' was home. I left home when I was 16 years and 7 months old, hence the 'sanctuary' I had known was not easily accessible. It then changed to reading. As the years ensued, I enjoyed many hours of reading and many, many books. Since nothing stays the same, I had to really think and narrow this down so I could put it into a 12" x 12" piece of fiber art. A thorough search revealed my husband of nearly 30 years and my marriage are truly my sanctuary. I have my husband to take life's brunt, he is so kind and protective of me.Together we enjoy a vast variety of pleasures, not the least being the time we spend together in our little back garden, listening and watching the birds. We often comment... 'this is our little sanctuary here on earth'.
My piece uses a photograph of the garden with the simple two hearts [that beat as one]

to portray 'My Sanctuary'.

Sanctuary - Imagine

California missions proved to be sanctuary for many in the early years. This piece is from a photo of the entrance to a Southern California mission. It was my inspiration as I imagined what lays behind the door for those who seek sanctuary today.
To make this piece, I painted a silkscreen with Caran d'Ache Neocolor II crayons and screened the image onto muslin with textile medium. When dry and heatset, I mounted it onto hand-dyed cotton , added texture with Neon threads, used Shiva oil sticks to stencil "Imagine" and added painted cheesecloth and stamped and painted fabrics as embellishments. It is bound with satin stitching. I was so enamored with this photograph that I also painted it in oils. I posted a photo of that on my blog.

Cathy Ortelle
http://www.artjourneys.blogspot.com

Bella's Sanctuary

"Bella's Sanctuary"

When the word “Sanctuary” was revealed, I wasn’t sure in what direction I wanted to go. At first, I thought I might go with the animal sanctuary idea, but that just didn’t seem to inspire me. During a conversation with my gentleman friend, we talked about all the different ways that the word could be portrayed. What came out of the conversation was the idea of how a small child finds sanctuary behind mom. I called my niece and asked if I could come over and photograph her daughter Isabella hiding behind her. Although it took several tries (I wish I could show all the silly faces that Bella gave me from behind her mom) I finally got the perfect shot. I translated that photograph into my sanctuary piece.

I used both hand dyes and commercial cotton fabric. These fabrics were shaped from a template and appliquéd together by glue (I love Roxanne’s Glue-Baste-It). The eye, lashes and brow are a combination of pismacolor pencils and fabric paint. The entire piece is covered with a layer of black tulle before any stitching is done. There is a lot of thread sketching, especially on the jeans. The background quilting is in a spiral, which you will find in many of my recent pieces, and I faced it with a hand dye of pink and beige that seemed to fit with the colors from the front. A few beads and sequins finish out the background but don’t seem to detract from the focal point of the little girl’s eye.

I really like this small quilt and hope to do a larger rendition in the future.

Lisa L. Kay

Ups

My picture was lost. Here it is.
Heidi

Here we are

My sanctuary and me. When the theme was published, I had a certain picture

in mind, I did take at a special place. I like the atmosphere, it shows - but was not certain, if I should take it for this quilt. But one of my words for this new year is

fun, having fun creating my art and feeling free to create what I feel.

So I have taken this picture and did my quilt with it.
Heidi

Here's my peek

The holidays, working two jobs, and being sick most of December did me in so I got a late start on Sanctuary. But I have made great progress these last four days and am ready to give my little peek.

So far, I have used both commercial and hand dyed fabrics, prisma pencils, and acrylic paint. There will be additional paint added and some thread painting. Who knows what will be added by the time I am done; I do love a good surface embellishment!

Lisa