A Garden Shrine

I love nature, and I love gardens … especially when gardens seem to blend in and work with nature.  When I walk around the yard in Spanaway, I love to pick up sticks and rocks and feathers, and I have vases of found feathers around the house, and a sizeable collection of birds’ nests.   To me, these are Nature’s treasures--Mother Nature’s handiwork--and I struggle to find places for them in my house.  That’s why I made my garden shrine.  

 

The shrine took me a long time to create—a little over ten years.  Its form started from the bottom of an old fiberglass shower stall.  When we re-did the bathroom 2010, I created a walk-in tiled shower with a concrete floor, and struggled with taking the fiberglass to the landfill.   However, when I saw the bottom of the shower on its side in the yard, waiting for the trip to the dumpster, I decided to keep it.   

 

For almost ten years, it sat under the cedar trees along the side of the yard.  I waited, partly to see where it wanted to live, and partly to decide how to make it work.  Later, I found a spot on a bank under the hazelnut bushes near the stone labyrinth.   It lived there for a few more years and started to deteriorate; moss began to grow on it.   

 

What finally made me finish the project was something my husband’s grandson said, “Oh!  She’ll never do that!”.   I laughed SO HARD!!!  I HAD BEEN CHALLENGED by a 10-year-old!!!  ... and set about to tile it—good or bad—ugly or beautiful!!  

 

I think what had stopped me from working on it was not knowing how the mosaic or design would look.  Even when I drew out my ideas, I felt that the shrine would never be able to blend with nature in the way I felt about it.  But, when I just gathered all the materials and started working with the monochromatic tiles of white and off-white, magical things began to happen.   I realized that all the shrine needed to be was this neutral space to make the treasures become the focal point.

 

The tile work also strengthened the integrity of the form and allowed for the outside coating of old towels in concrete, which created a rough surface on which the moss is growing.   To me, it is a magical place, and I love the things I find even more because they have the space.   The squirrels seem to love it too … they steal the feathers!