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It was a very special Friday at St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish School in Schenectady as an amazing new painting was donated to the school and unveiled to the students on Oct. 21. The 3-by-3 painting was done by local artist Jack Graber, who was inspired after visiting the National Shrine of the Divine Mercy in Stockbridge, Mass., and seeing a Mass card of St. Kateri.

“I am an artist. I was an art director and illustrator and since I retired, every day I give myself an art assignment. I have canvases all over the place,” said Graber, who is a parishioner at Historic St. Mary’s Church on Capitol Hill in Albany. “One day my wife and I were visiting (the shrine) and there are a lot of Mass cards and holy cards and there is St. Kateri. Her father was a Mohawk Indian and her mother was an Algonquin and here we are right in this area. … So it was a natural. I said, ‘There’s my next assignment.’ ”

The frame was donated by Sarah Cole, who is a parishioner at St. Kateri Tekakwitha Parish and worked with Graber for years, and the painting was blessed by Father Robert Longobucco. 

“I saw it and I said I will donate the framing. It was something that I really felt passionate about,” Cole said.
The painting will hang in the main entrance of the school to inspire visitors and students.

“If the kids are inspired by it or if they know something about her life that would be nice for kids to know,” said Graber, who also painted the pictures of the Four Evangelists that hang in the foyer of the Pastoral Center in Albany. “But also for budding artists, future artists like I was at that age might say, ‘I saw the guy that painted that picture and maybe I can do that someday.’ ”

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