One of the most impressive sights in this two hundred and twelve year old Franciscan mission church is a fully costumed Madonna figure under a canopy on a wall of the Church’s East Chapel. Its clothes are frequently laundered and changed and its 18th century crown of silver cleaned and polished. I watched as the light from a window on the opposing wall bathed the figure of the Madonna in dramatic light, and made many images of it as my subject. Yet as the light continued to slowly climb, leaving the figure in the shadows and illuminating a small portion of the painted canopy above it, it gave me an opportunity to take a more abstract and less literal approach. In this photograph, the splash of light symbolizes the mystical nature of spirituality itself, and the figure, now absorbed within the mysterious shadows, becomes part of the context instead of the subject.