Guard Dog 2008

Sanctuary: in its original meaning, is a sacred place, such as a shrine. By the use of such places as a safe haven, by extension the term has come to be used for any place of safety. This secondary use can be categorized into human sanctuary, a safe place for humans, such as a political sanctuary; and non-human sanctuary, such as an animal or plant sanctuary. Wikipedia

Late this morning, Fernando Delgado, a photographer here in Albuquerque, made a studio visit so that we could select work for a show that he is both curating and participating in called "Sanctuary", to be exhibited at the South Broadway Cultural Center in Albuquerque in April of this year.  He left with the understanding that I would select  work I thought appropriate to fit the definition of the show.  He made it clear that the definition was very broad.  However, after looking through my work, I realized that there was no sanctuary, or place of safety in any of the work I do, in fact, it's the complete opposite.  I could find lots of examples of unsafe places, but no "sanctuaries". Throughout the day, as I communicated back and forth with Fernando via email, we both came to the same conclusion:  my work, my studio, what I do, is my sanctuary.  With this in mind I decided the work that I would give to Fernando would be all self-portraits.  I knew that Guard Dog had to be included.  Not only is it a self-portrait, it's the me that's defending and protecting the very sanctuary that we are talking about.  Stay tuned, more to come, as I find and choose the self portraits to go to Fernando's exhibit.