A mural Cincinnati lost, and our hope to bring it back. This time, in paint. This time, for good.

Eternal Conviction, the original artwork. Saints Perpetua and Felicity, with the dragon behind them and the hand of God above, framed by lilies. This is the piece the Cathedral chose for its wall.

It started with a church that thinks forward

In the fall of 2024, Christ Church Cathedral in downtown Cincinnati did something bold. Led by the vision of Christopher Preston Williams, a longtime member who believes the church should meet the city where it lives, the Cathedral put a brand new work of contemporary art on its outside wall, high over 4th and Sycamore, for the whole city to see during BLINK.

Most churches keep their art inside. This one put faith on the facade, loud and in public, where anybody walking downtown could stand in front of it.

That is what faith does. It finds new forms. It speaks in the language of its time. For this Cathedral, that language was modern and bold, and the artwork was mine.

The piece

My name is Jide' Fresh. I am an artist and author from Louisville, with Cincinnati as my second home, and Eternal Conviction was my first mural.

The work depicts Saints Perpetua and Felicity, two martyrs of the early church, as African women. Their story is ancient. Their faces, on that wall, were ours. Vivid color and bold strokes, a street art energy carried into sacred imagery, faith represented the way this generation actually sees the world. That is what the Cathedral chose to show the city: the old story, told in a new and modern style, out loud.

My own history with this church runs deep. After a hit-and-run nearly took my life in 2018, I rebuilt from a job at Forward Movement, the Cincinnati ministry connected to Christ Church Cathedral. The role did not last, but the church's commitment to community stayed with me. Six years later I came back through the front of the building, as the artist on its wall. Life comes full circle when you let it.

The Cathedral purchased the work and gave it the framed square on the south facade, 19.5 feet by 23.5 feet of color against the stone. It went up on October 16, 2024, one day before BLINK opened, and for a moment, it was exactly what Chris and the church had imagined: a living, modern testimony on one of the oldest walls downtown.

The piece on the wall, October 2024.

The piece from the street on installation day, October 2024, the lift still parked below it.

The fall

A wind storm tore the printed piece from its attachments within two weeks. It had not been secured the way it should have been, and hanging loose over a downtown sidewalk, it became a hazard. The Cincinnati Fire Department took it down.

What followed was harder than the fall. The piece went into the church's storage, and the will to save it was there. Dean Thompson himself wanted it back up, and put back up correctly. But the repair path never came together. The banner had been printed smaller than the frame it was meant to fill, so it had never sat right in the first place, and fixing it meant new fees, a final-payment dispute, and timing that kept slipping. Months passed. It never went back up. There was no press, no announcement, no record. Eventually the piece itself was gone.

After the fall, inside the Cathedral's own gym: the piece laid out for inspection while the church and the artist tried to find a way to put it back up, correctly this time.

Except it did happen, and people remember

In the time since, parishioners at the Cathedral, including Black members of that congregation, have stopped me to ask about the piece. Where did it go? Why did it never come back? A work of art that lived on that wall for two weeks took root in people anyway. Imagine what it could do in paint, permanent, for decades.

Bringing it back

We would like to bring Eternal Conviction back, and to do it right this time.

Painted, by hand, on the wall itself. Produced properly, documented from the first day, with the artist, the church, and this city moving together as one team, at a pace that does every step justice. That is the hope we are carrying to the Cathedral, and this page is where the asking begins.

And the asking should be understood clearly. We are not asking the Cathedral to pay for this mural. We want to be part of raising the money ourselves, alongside the founding circle and this city, so the piece comes back as something the whole community carried. What we ask of the church is its blessing and its partnership.

I would direct the work. A professional painting team from my own circle of trusted artist friends would execute it on the wall under my direction. We come to the Cathedral first, in conversation and with respect, because nothing about this happens without its blessing. From there, we hope sister churches would form a founding circle around it, beginning with Cincinnati's historically Black Episcopal congregations. Then the whole city would get its turn.

What it takes

This is the full cost of doing it right, and it is a cost we intend to raise together. The Cathedral is being asked for permission and partnership. The fundraising is ours to carry, with every institution and neighbor who stands with us.

If the Cathedral blesses this return, giving would open in stages. The founding circle of churches and first supporters would go first, in the winter and spring of 2027. A public campaign would follow, the painting would happen in the summer of 2027, and an unveiling at the Cathedral would follow in August 2027. When BLINK returns in 2028, our hope is that Eternal Conviction is already standing.

Be part of the return

If you are a congregation that wants a place in the founding circle, a business that wants to underwrite a section of wall, or a neighbor who simply wants this piece back where it belongs, write to us. Tell us who you are and how you want to be part of it, and we will bring you in at the right step.

WRITE TO US

A storm took this mural down in two weeks. With the church's blessing, this city can put it back up for good.

Jide' Fresh
Artist and Creative Director
In Fly We Trust