Depths of Woe but Light in the Morning ~ Bread for Beggars

Timothy Reynolds collaborates with Karen Goetzinger this week – pairing his Lenten song “Depths of Woe” with her painting “There’ll Be Light in the Morning”.

Karen paints in what she calls an Abstract Expressionism or Gestural Abstraction style. She does a wonderful job of explaining her process:

Words rarely come easily to me. My mind is always way ahead of my words, and so one idea slips to another to another . . . And so I’ve found that abstraction has been such a good fit for me and my lack of words because it allows me to express a vocabulary through color and marks and composition. And so I’m able to record memories or emotions of a particular day or a place and time without any literal references.

So typically I’ll start with a large blank canvas. I work with canvases unstretched on my studio wall. And I’ll make some freeing, spontaneous marks with graphite or charcoal, and then those kind of break the surface and usually give me a direction for composition. But after those first freeing marks, every mark and color selection becomes more intentional as I go along.
Karen Goetzinger

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Those who are less familiar with this style of art might wonder how to view the work, how to interpret it. What place can this type of painting have in our churches and in our personal lives of faith?

Karen again has much to say to help us along, explaining how personal and emotional connections can be made by the viewer:

Abstract doesn’t give us everything up front. It requires us to dig a little bit deeper and to actually dig into our God-given imaginations. So it is open to interpretation.

I kind of liken it to instrumental music. Instrumental music doesn’t really have overt clues to tell us what the piece is about. . . . But I think every one of us has been moved by a beautiful piece of music that has no words.
. . . I think that abstract paintings are like instrumental music and intended to be expressive and capture emotion.

I really feel that abstract can play a supporting role to help set the tone for liturgical settings, especially since we’re in Lent, I think abstract can really set a more penitential feel during the Lenten season – or can show complete unabashed joy on Easter morning.
Karen Goetzinger

Timothy saw the possible emotional connections to be made particularly during Lent and leading into Easter. Moving from depths of woe to light in the morning on Easter.

I was drawn to this piece before I knew the title. As I looked at it, it had a hopeful energy, and it spoke to me of hope, of a spark of truth. . . And I just immediately said, “Wow, I know what this goes to!”

The idea that there’s a watcher waiting for the morning is one of the images that Luther uses with that hopeful joy that’s going to come. . . .We understand that hope of “there’s light in the morning.” And each Sunday during Lent is a little Easter with all its light. So I love that!
Timothy Reynolds