Why Weepest Thou

John 20:15Bedroom

$24.00
You are awake before anyone else again. The house is dark, the kettle can wait, and whatever you are carrying has surfaced before the light has. Above the headboard there is a print of a woman stooping to look into an opening, and someone standing behind her who has already turned. The first thing the room shows you is someone being met. Nothing over the bed tells you how to feel about it. Friends see a painting and ask about the arch, and you get to answer in your own words.

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170 gsm archival matte paper, ships rolled

Perfect for self-framing

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Bedroom bible verse wall art John 20

Someone has already turned toward her

Half dark, and the light has not decided yet. A woman stoops at a low opening in the stone, her back to the room, the fold of her cloak still heavy with the night. Behind her a pale figure stands where she is not looking, already turned toward her. The arch above them holds the first grey of the morning.

What it gives you is this: when the room gets light, the first thing in it is someone being met. No sentence over the bed, nothing asked of you at five in the morning.

One friend sees a woman bending to look into a place she expected to find empty. Another sees two people who arrived too late, and one of them already waiting. Someone else sees the moment before she knows who it is, and tells you she hopes you see new mercies every single morning. Three readings of one quiet wall, and the answer stays yours to give.

From the artist

The light is behind her, not in the opening

Maren Hale
Maren Hale
Arrivals and still places

I keep coming back to the space between them. She is bent low, looking into the dark, and the light is not in the opening at all. It is behind her, standing quietly, waiting to be noticed. The white of that figure is the brightest thing here, and it does nothing loud with it. The morning in the arch is still grey. Nothing has happened yet, and everything has.

What I want for the one who hangs this above her bed is small. That the room fills slowly. That the last minute before she gets up is not a lonely one, and that the turning figure is there before she is.

Bedroom scripture print gift

Two women awake in the same hour

One buys it for herself. Her worry is worst at night, and she uses that hour to pray and to ask for peace, and she would rather look at something than at the ceiling. She does her crying and her praying before the house wakes, and nobody in the picture hurries her through it.

The other buys it for someone else. A daughter for the mother who is up first every day and says she truly does not want stuff, she has everything she needs. Or for a friend after a loss, handed over with nothing explained, because there was nothing to explain.

It hangs above the headboard, on the right of its pair, so the two prints read from night to morning across one wall.

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Bible verse wall art

What arrives, and how it sits on the wall

  • Black wood frame, 12 mm wide Flat square profile, 22 mm deep, matte finish, plexiglass front, no mat. The print runs to the inner edge on 170 gsm coated silk paper.
  • 170 gsm matte uncoated paper The print only version, a single sheet printed to its edges. No shine under a bedside lamp.
  • Three sizes 12x16 in / 30x40 cm, 18x24 in / 45x60 cm, 24x32 in / 60x80 cm. The largest is the one that holds a headboard.
  • Giclee print The half dark stays half dark, and the one pale figure keeps its light.
For a grief season

What you might still want to know

1.What verse is about the morning of the resurrection?
John 20 puts Mary at the garden tomb at first light, while the rest of the day has not started. The words why weepest thou belong to that morning, spoken by the one standing behind her. The scene here is that moment, and what it says to you stays yours.
2.What two prints hang well above a bed?
A pair reads best when the two share a palette and a size, hung a hand's width apart so they make one line across the wall. This one is the right hand print of its pair, so the wall moves from night to morning. At 24x32 in / 60x80 cm each, two of them hold a double headboard without crowding it.
3.What Christian art works in a neutral bedroom?
Scenes rather than slogans, and no crosses or radiance. This one is stone, half dark and a single pale figure, so it sits easily with oak, linen and off white walls. A guest usually reads it as a painting and asks about the arch.
4.What do I say when I give this to a friend who is grieving?
Very little. Most people say only that it made them think of her, and let the picture carry the rest. A daughter giving it to a mother who is up before everyone else can say the same thing and leave it there.
Scripture print gift

The wall the light reaches first

Three sizes, framed in black wood or as a single sheet, ready for the space above the headboard.

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