Beautiful Art from my "York Mom"

In late March of this year, I shared the below on social media:

Please keep the soul of my "York Mom" in your prayers and keep her daughter and family in your thoughts as they face the upcoming days without Mrs. Grupp.

Since having Charlotte, I have often tried to model the way I parent after how I saw Mrs. Grupp do it.

I had the blessing of being a sidelines witness to the love of their close knit family in college and my young adult years when living in York and seeing how close she and Ashley were....and by extension feeling her love for me. So glad she is no longer suffering but sad at the thought of no more art being created by her, no more laughs being shared with her loved ones, and no more of her constant presence being felt in a tangible way by Ash. May God comfort those who are mourning as they also look forward to reuniting in Heaven someday.

Thankfully, in late May, my Mom and I were able to travel to southern PA to attend the beautiful Memorial Ashley and her Dad planned for her sweet mom. Since Mrs. Grupp was an artist, they decided to set up her art in the hall where the reception was held. The art was available for anyone to take with the request to donate to one of three charities or oganizations that meant a lot to Mrs. Grupp. I already had several pieces of Mrs. Grupp's art hanging here in Ohio but was happy to add to my "collection" of her fingerprints in our home. 😍

The above was what I came home with after attending the Memorial of Mrs. Grupp's life.

I had long had the canvas paintings, that incorporated multimedia elements (and was a surprise from Mrs. Grupp back when I was roommates with Ashley in Pennsylvania), on the opposite wall in our kitchen but now the below pencil drawings are framed and adorn the kitchen entryway wall.

The panoramic sky scenes on the large canvas on the bottom have been hanging in this house for the last ten years and you'll see the pencil drawings resting on top, before they landed in their frames on the opposite wall, served as the inspiration for the large canvas paintings. I remember Mrs. Grupp describing to me and demonstrating in her garage how she used the multimedia approach to create this work. If you zoom in on the image, you'll see the different textures within the canvas art.

I laminated and hung up the smaller pictures that reminded me of Charlotte's Fairy Garden. I have them on display in her bedroom by the window that looks out on part of her Fairy Garden.

The middle imageof a Fairy in her Garden, in the black frame, was the perfect addition to the whmsical dragonflies and butterflies that Mrs. Grupp had painted and given me for one of my birthdays in my early 20s. Since moving into this house, they have hung in Charlotte's bedroom / the St. Francis Room. Charlotte loves the addition of this newest image that also reminds her of one of her favorite movies: Inside Out!

Notice the newest animal in our living room? 🦒

I was also able to obtain one dozen hand-made cards. Every year, Mrs. Grupp made amazing Christmas cards that she mailed to friends and family. So, having some of her every-day cards to mail to others is a bit nostalgic for me.

I plan to use the black and white images as story starters in my classes when providing some hands-on practice for the pre-service teachers I work with in implementing strategies we will cover in the classes. I also plan to have Charlotte engage in coloring some of the black and white scenes after creating a story about what is happening in the scene.

Below is the wedding gift Mrs. Grupp painted for us. She knew that the featured scripture held a lot of meaning for Adam and me, and we have it hanging up in our bedroom. 💕