Suzanne Mancuso, the artist who set her second world record earlier this year, will be showcasing her project of 1,200 paintings of various religious buildings at the Mahopac Library on Sept. 21.
"I wanted to do something ridiculous," Mancusso said of her second project, adding that she didn't think it would get this out of hand. "I wanted to do something cool."
In order to set the world record, Mancuso had to paint at least 1,000 religious buildings. She started working on the project in November 2010 by painting them on the back of her original painting with which she set her first world record.
She had originally displayed that painting – a large-scale mural of the Virgin Mary – at the Grace Lutheran Church in Yorktown where she has been a member for more than two decades. There, Pastor Tim Kennedy blessed Mancuso's original painting once it was completed.
In an effort to recycle that art project, Mancuso chopped the mural into small postcard-sized pieces. She began gathering pictures of local churches, and included parishes and congregations from Westchester, Putnam and Rockland counties, as well as religious buildings from around the world, which she then painted.
For both of her projects, Mancuso said, she used more than 150 gallons of acrylic paint and approximately 150 paint brushes over the course of the years.
Click here to read more about Mancuso. Click here to see her second world record recognition.
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