Mother of God - Sweetly Kissing Painting

I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio, a town with very rich Eastern European ethnicity. I earned an undergraduate in Philosophy from St. Joseph’s College, Rensselaer, Indiana, and have been a member of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd since 1976. After years of working in Good Shepherd programs in Cleveland, Detroit, Columbus and Louisville, earning an MBA at Xavier University, Cincinnati, and certification as a Chemical Dependency Counselor I was granted permission to study art at Bellarmine University in Louisville. Since 1998, I have spent more and more time in a ministry of the arts, with a special interest in the Byzantine style, and more so, in the creation of sacred art featuring women and diverse ethnic groups. My work has included a series of African-American women representing the seven virtues of Kwanzaa, women of the Bible (notably, the women ancestors of Jesus) and historical figures from the Congregation of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd.