Here’s a painting with a big story.

In a journal post, I share how I found its source images and the idea to paint it. Here’s what happened next:

This painting began as digital art. The original image captured the Musée d’Orsay clock as it looked in 1998.

Standing on a catwalk, I saw the clock partially obscured by the building’s structure. I wanted to include some of this framework while portraying the clock in its entirety. Photoshop helped me reconstruct the missing sections.

This one called out to be big—cinematic. The largest paper I could use was 40”x40.”

My spiritual director, Sister Mary Neill, called the image “eternal.” That’s it! It became the title. She pointed out rich symbolism: the triangle suggesting the Trinity, Roman numerals shaped by the human hand (the IIII instead of IV!), the X evoking St. Andrew’s cross, and the rose—an anagram for “eros,” full of meaning.

It amazes me—this is me, the barefoot girl who played hide-and-seek after dark. with all the boys I never knew this feminine creature was me, too.

This image holds it all—the eternal feminine framed by the temporal, supported by masculine structure.

One day, this clock began keeping time. One day, it will stop. In between are infinite moments where beauty brings us to the eternal.

February – March 2015 – 40″x40″ – Watercolor on paper

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