Suzanne Kraus-Mancuso, has been a member of the Grace Lutheran Church in Yorktown for 24 years. She had gotten married to her husband Joseph and had their daughter Katlynn, 15, baptized there.
Now the church is trying to pay off its $150,000 mortgage and Mancuso said she wanted to help.
On October 2 she completed her 100 feet, 10 feet wide, 1000 square feet "Mural of Hope" painting of Virgin Mary, in hopes to set the world record with the largest painting of its kind. She said there has been no record of a Virgin Mary painting in that size.
The money that would be raised after eventually auctioning off the painting would help pay for some of the church's mortgage.
For the painting, Mancuso went through 10 to 12 gallons of latex and household paints using brooms, mops and big brushes. It was a single artist painting, but friends and family helped pour the paint, set up and put things away.
Currently the painting is rolled up in a storage in the woman's basement in her Putnam Valley home. On Monday, she said she formally submitted her receipts to the World's Records Academy for a review. She said in less than a month she could find out if her painting had officially set a world record.
"I wanted to leave my mark first," she said of the fact that she would the first person to do such a painting.
She said that even if someone else makes a larger one in the future, she would always be the first one. Members of the World's Records Academy have not given her any indication that someone had been trying to paint such a large mural of Virgin Mary.
"I try my hands at different things, but art is where I can be the most creative," Mancuso said.
Mancuso is also a writer. She has published two books on Shirley Temple, Shirley Temple Identification and Price Guide in Volume 1 and 2, which were on the New York Times bestseller list.
She has also been involved with painting doll faces at the Yorktown Museum. She said she got the idea to paint a large mural after a fellow artist Jennifer Beinhacker joking told her to paint a large mural for a world record. That's when Mancuso thought of the church as a way to give back.
Now the church is trying to pay off its $150,000 mortgage and Mancuso said she wanted to help.
On October 2 she completed her 100 feet, 10 feet wide, 1000 square feet "Mural of Hope" painting of Virgin Mary, in hopes to set the world record with the largest painting of its kind. She said there has been no record of a Virgin Mary painting in that size.
The money that would be raised after eventually auctioning off the painting would help pay for some of the church's mortgage.
For the painting, Mancuso went through 10 to 12 gallons of latex and household paints using brooms, mops and big brushes. It was a single artist painting, but friends and family helped pour the paint, set up and put things away.
Currently the painting is rolled up in a storage in the woman's basement in her Putnam Valley home. On Monday, she said she formally submitted her receipts to the World's Records Academy for a review. She said in less than a month she could find out if her painting had officially set a world record.
"I wanted to leave my mark first," she said of the fact that she would the first person to do such a painting.
She said that even if someone else makes a larger one in the future, she would always be the first one. Members of the World's Records Academy have not given her any indication that someone had been trying to paint such a large mural of Virgin Mary.
"I try my hands at different things, but art is where I can be the most creative," Mancuso said.
Mancuso is also a writer. She has published two books on Shirley Temple, Shirley Temple Identification and Price Guide in Volume 1 and 2, which were on the New York Times bestseller list.
She has also been involved with painting doll faces at the Yorktown Museum. She said she got the idea to paint a large mural after a fellow artist Jennifer Beinhacker joking told her to paint a large mural for a world record. That's when Mancuso thought of the church as a way to give back.