Pray to Love

Anne Goetze was born into a family of artists and photographers and has studied with many contemporary artist such as Anton Weiss, Quang Ho, Skip Whitcomb and Dawn Whitelaw. Her work is found in the permanent collections of The Tennessee State Museum and Vanderbilt Children's Hospital, as well as the personal collections of Oprah Winfrey, Tony Joe White, U S Senator Fred Thompson, Tim McGraw, Michael McDonald, Naomi Judd, John Hiatt, Nashville Mayor Karl Dean and Billy Ray Cyrus, among others.

Come share the inspiration of Pray to Love, a Mixed Media Exhibit of the images, paintings and film created by Anne Goetze in memory of her Aunt Helen, Sister Margarite Marie, at the Monestere de la Visitation, home to the Visitation Order, which has now existed over 400 years. Pray to Love will be on view February 17th to the 25th at the Visitation Monastery, 2300 Springhill Avenue, Mobile, Alabama 36607. Anne Goetze will be honored at an Opening Reception in the Parlor of the Visitation Monastery on Wednesday, February 17 from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. The exhibit will otherwise be open each day from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. and 5:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. Tours of Visitation Monastery will also be available at 10:30 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. on February 18, 20 and 25; call (251) 473-4901 for reservations. For more information, please visit www.visitationmonasterymobile.org or contact Deborah Farmer at (251) 421-1893; swmbo6@att.net. To view Anne Goetze's art, visit www.annegoetze.com.

 PHOTOS:

     Anne Goetze, creator of Pray to Love

   In Silence, multimedia, canvas 40” x 40”

Anne Goetze’s Personal and Artistic Journey

Emerges to an Inspirational Exhibit

Visitation Monastery • February 18 to 25, 2016

For over 20 years, Anne Goetze made repeated journeys to Annecy, France, to visit her Aunt Helen, Soeur Margarite Marie, at the Monestere de la Visitation, home to the Visitation Order and foundation for the Visitation Monastery which arrived in Mobile, Alabama, in 1832.  The Visitation Order has now existed over 400 years.

According to Anne, Soeur Margarite Marie “was Aunt Helen to me, my father’s sister.” Soeur Margarite Marie spent the majority of her long life as a closed-cloistered nun living the simple, contemplative life dedicated to prayer. Anne recalls visiting her as a child and “wondering why she was behind wooden bars… why she was in jail.”  Over the years Anne began to discover where it was that Aunt Helen’s freedom really existed. “It was in the soul. With the vow of poverty, the nuns own nothing. Yet they had everything. They had joy. There was peace. Many of us travel the world over and still cannot find it.”

 Anne was not permitted inside the monastery, but on every visit she documented her impressions and photographed the grounds and village surrounding the monastery. Over the years, Anne grew to love the small group of women, and they became accustomed to having her there with her camera.  “Meek, yet firm” this small community of women pray, day in africacasinos.co.za and day out.  They pray for the world, they pray for the known and unknown. They even pray for me. Who does that but my own mother?”  Anne recalls that with each visit “I was filled with so much emotion by the beauty and spirit of the place. And each time when I returned home from one of the oldest cities in the Alps, I knew that I would never be the same again.”

Monastere De La Visitation, Ashes, oil, archival ink, canvas, 20” x 30”

Anne saw her Aunt Helen for the last time in November 2013. “She was just shy of her 85th birthday when I returned in January 2014 for her funeral. Once again I roamed about with my camera; this time I was freely allowed within the interior walls of the monastery.”   When Anne returned from the funeral she became completely immersed in painting the imagery she had collected for decades. Through images, paintings and film, Anne has been working on a multimedia project about these nuns, which has evolved “to document, as well as acknowledge, the importance of these beloved little women.”

In Silence, multimedia, canvas, 40” x 40”

Anne will now share with us this cohesive body of work. Its title, Pray to Love, is a saying the nuns use frequently. Anne says, “While it is a very personal project and definitely not commercial, it also draws community. No matter what your faith, you can relate to the peacefulness and serenity.” "Pray to Love includes thirty pieces with captions." Anne and her son, Nathan Collie, created a film documenting Anne’s experiences and the creative process, which will be projected during the exhibition.