Perhaps the most detailed and complicated painting I've ever done. I've always been fascinated by angels - and how we humans imagine them. I decided to do a painting featuring an angel and for some reason, thought that I would show her crossing the street. I couldn't decide whether I should go forward with this concept or not - but then went to a Franciscan regional conference where a woman spoke about how here on earth, we should always be trying to get to heaven and by living a life of virtue, we literally experience heaven on earth. That convinced me to move forward. As I was creating this, there were perspective and sizing issues that I had to correct. When I first painted the angel, she was in a dark green dress with dark wings - a few comments from people viewing my work in progress all wondered why I was painting a dark angel. That was not the narrative I wanted so I completely re-did her, giving her a traditional look of a white angel. In the course of creating this, I felt as if I was creating my own little city - there are lots of small touches in this painting - from a faint outline of people in the upstairs window to shoppers on the other side of the street - one man is running. There's a double decker bus on the street and anyone familiar with traffic lights will recognize that I am not depicting an American city scene. Across the street from her, there is a street sign - Heaven street and if you look at the traffic signal, you'll see there is an angel depicted. There are angels all around us - they're just not always as obvious as the one depicted in this painting. There are stories going on in this painting that each viewer may interpret differently. I hope you enjoy looking at it.