When Laura-Jean Schnupp died of cancer in 2021 at age 28, she left behind more than memories. A recreational therapist who worked at various hospitals, she had made dozens of colorful paintings like bright splashes with sayings such as, “There is no path to happiness. Happiness is the path” and “Try to be a rainbow in someone else’s cloud.”
They were one way she found to lift her spirits, and that of those around her, during the darkest days of cancer battle. But for her mother, Jeanne Santomauro Schnupp, those paintings were like shadows of her spirit or cheerful expressions of emotion channeled through art.
The two had always shared art as a kind of bond: Schnupp, 69, of Holtsville, even created art kits as a memorial she distributed in hospitals in her daughter’s honor. But through her sadness, she began to see something that, she decided, would become her next and maybe her biggest canvas: Instead of just a recreational vehicle, she saw the family’s 30-foot-long vehicle as a blank canvas that she would make beautiful.
Schnupp says her daughter loved spending time in the RV, which she decided to turn into a massive moving mural, as a kind of memorial and a way of turning blank walls into something beautiful. She stripped it of stickers and obstructions to begin painting, only to find something when she cleaned out cabinets.
“I found this little rock my daughter painted a butterfly on. You wonder, ‘Was this a message from her?’” Santomauro Schnupp says. “Why did she paint this butterfly on a rock?”
Schnupp, whose passion for decorative painting had led her to create Jeannie’s Designs, which made murals and faux finishes, such as trompe l’oeil, had semi-retired and focused her energy on turning the trailer into a mobile work of art.
The multi-faceted group of murals is an example of how craft, talent and imagination can transform something mundane into beautiful murals that make heads turn.
“I sometimes think she’s in me and emotes through me,” Schnupp says. “We’re very much alike. We tend to be positive people.”
Transporting the Spirit
A recreational therapist, Laura-Jean brought positive energy to patients, as well as through art she created. “She loved to help people,” her mother recalls. “She was a light. She could lift people. Maybe she’s doing that for me.”
The RV itself played an important role in the family’s life for years. Schnupp says they used to go camping in tents, until she watched some friends begin buying travel trailers. She liked the idea of camping with a bed, refrigerator and amenities.
“I kept passing this RV park where they sell them on Route 112. One day I pulled in and I said, ‘I’m going to check this out,’” Schnupp says. “I was tired of being in a tent.” They shelled out $10,000 for a lightly used one that the family used to travel to Long Island beaches and far beyond. If experiences were beautiful, though, the camper was a little bland.
When Laura-Jean fell ill with cancer of unknown origin (which means they don’t know where or how it started), they searched and hoped for a cure, while her daughter remained optimistic. She passed away Feb. 12, 2021, leaving behind beautiful paintings and photographs, including one surrounded by sunflowers where she is the brightest spot in the picture. Schnupp tried not so much to heal, but to transform pain, creating art kits with crayons that she distributed at hospitals.
Michelangelo Moment
Then one day she had a kind of mini Michelangelo moment where she decided to turn the RV into a mural on wheels.
In the fall of 2023, she began, using a heat gun to remove decals, washing the walls, sketching beach scenes to paint, then priming and painting with Benjamin Moore.
“My favorite place to camp is on the beach on Long Island. Montauk Point, Hither Hills or Cupsogue,” she says. “It was inevitable to have a beach scene. That was my happy place.”
She completed the mural by the spring of 2024, working when it wasn’t rainy or too hot, to finish before the first camping trip in June. “I actually worked on it while we were camping, when I had down time,” she says. “What a beautiful place to paint by the ocean.”
A stroll around the camper reveals a beach scene with a whale, dolphins and sea lions framed by sand and shrubs, which she created with a little help from photographs.
“I had to get a picture of a heron, so I knew the details of drawing a heron,” she says. “A lot of times when we’re at the beach, we hope we’ll see a whale in the distance or dolphins — and we do. All those things on the trailer are occurrences. The heron on the rock. And the lighthouse, of course.”
Art and the Family Album
She took photographs of her grandchildren posing to paint them playing on the beach with Laura-Jean, who only got to meet and know the oldest, Cameron, born after Laura-Jean’s diagnosis in January 2020. Ava, Emelia and Emma also are there near shells collected in Cupsogue glued to the scene.
“He’s the only one who got to know her,” Schnupp says of Cameron. “They missed knowing her. She was such a great person. She would have been a very big, positive force in their life.”
She also incorporated her grandchildren onto a table inside the RV covered with blue butterflies. “I got footprints of my grandkids that created the butterflies on the table,” she says. “I covered the top in resin, so they’ll always be there at that age. Each butterfly has one of my grandchildren’s names on it.”
The back of the camper shows their white golden doodle Ellie and a black poodle named Marley, along with a butterfly, a creature Laura-Jean loved that is now a kind of spiritual signature to sign a painted sky on a perpetually sunny day that no clouds can stain.
It never rains in a painting of a beautiful day, and Schnupp enjoys seeing the sunny scene always there signed with her daughter’s energy. “I do want to work on the sky a little more,” she says. “I’m hoping it’s comforting. You relax. That’s the thing about a beach. You get the vibe of let’s relax.”
On one panel of the camper, the most private and personal, the one visible from the car, Laura-Jean dances in the sand, alone, always behind her mother, at once a girl and an angel surrounded by a beautiful breath of butterflies before a great grief arrived.
“That shows her spirit. That’s how she was,” Schnupp says. “She loved to express herself. She was an artist, fun. This represents her.”
The Road to Happiness
They hook the trailer up to their Ford Ram or Ford Explorer, and tow it to the beaches, on apple-picking trips and anywhere they choose. People who see this camper turned into canvas, blending into the beach, often talk with her about the work, although she doesn’t necessarily tell Laura-Jean’s story.
“I get a lot of reactions and inquiries to do this,” she says, noting she doesn’t include her name or contact information on the work. “If I created a business doing that, I’d need a warehouse. I wouldn’t rely on the weather cooperating.”
Many people, though, look at it as a work of art parked by the beach, part novelty and party beauty. “They love it. They like it. Sometimes I give them a tour and let them come in the trailer. It’s kind of fun,” she says. “They always say, ‘You should do it for a living.’ I’m really not looking to start a brand-new business, but I would do it part-time.”
Plus, she’s still perfecting it, as she says. “It’s a work in progress. I want to add a few more things.”
As for the butterfly rock Schnupp found, it’s back where it belongs, so the trailer includes Laura-Jean’s artwork.
“I put it right back where she had it. It’s in the back of the trailer, where the bunks are,” she says. “There’s a cabinet with an open shelf. It’s her piece of artwork. They all know to leave it there.”
While people don’t necessarily know Laura-Jean’s story or how this is a memorial, people do thank her for letting them spend time enjoying this exhibit on wheels, including a lifeguard in a more stark trailer at Hither Hills.
“We pulled out to leave. The lifeguard says, ‘I’m sad to see you go, because I got to look at this out my window,’” she says.
Beauty may not be the best revenge, but it can be, if not the best, one form of, therapy, battling pain and healing sorrow with joy.
“This was my therapy. The kit I made to give to cancer patients was part of therapy,” she says. “The painting of this trailer was my therapy. I can’t express art therapy enough, how beneficial it is.”
“She and I loved that camper. She loved having her friends out,” Santomauro Schnupp says. “It’s a fun place to be with our family. I’ll always have good memories.”
This article appeared in the January 2025 edition of Behind The Hedges Powered by the Long Island Press. Read the full digital edition here.
