At age 90, Precious Blood sister who is an artist still going strong

Published: 2008-02-21

DAYTON, Ohio (CNS) -- Most people looking at a block of wood or stone see ... a block of wood or stone. But Precious Blood Sister Eileen Tomlinson apparently thinks like the great Renaissance artist Michelangelo. According to legend, Michelangelo said that when he looked at a block of marble he saw the figure within, waiting to be released. Last winter, Sister Eileen looked at a large log of walnut wood and saw more than what met the eye. She saw Mother Maria Anna Brunner, the Swiss-born foundress of the Sisters of the Precious Blood. And she soon went to work to free her. In their 162-year history, the Dayton-based Sisters of the Precious Blood have had no shortage of talented women, artists who work in almost every medium. But Sister Eileen's talents range across an incredibly wide artistic spectrum: oil, acrylic and watercolor painting, pen-and-ink illustration, calligraphy, sculpture and woodcarving. Trained as an artist, Sister Eileen was an art teacher for many years in Ohio and California before she "retired" to the motherhouse in Dayton's Salem Heights area in 1997. Since then she has been the unofficial artist-in-residence, in constant demand for her artistic work.

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