Nancy Marasch

Artist, calligrapher, writer and mother Nancy Anne (Vanevenhoven) Marasch died Nov. 10 at TruCare in Louisville, Colorado. Her death came peacefully after a long-term struggle with illness and injury. As an artist, Nancy called herself "fickle on medium" loving to work in a variety of forms. She won awards for her metal sculpture, oil paintings, water colors, calligraphy and pen and ink on rice paper. Her life as an artist started when, at 3, she took advantage of her father's bathroom break to grab his paintbrush and decorate her house as high as her hands could reach with aluminum-colored paint. She graduated from Kimberly High School in Kimberly, Wisconsin, as valedictorian and went on to study art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she married Milton Marasch and had her two eldest children, Milton and Mariah. While at college, she created an early multimedia presentation using still illustration and video for her professors. She also won best-in-show for a miniature bronze sculpture called "Motherly Love." She was eight months pregnant when she received that award. After college, she moved to first Endicott and then Wappinger's Falls, New York, where she had another four children: Michelle, Mark, Matthew and Marek. There, she also served as an officer of the Art Depot Guild of Artists and helped to run one of the largest art fairs in New York, North of the New York City. She also taught pottery, painting and calligraphy and participated in many art shows, winning best-in-show awards at several. Later, she moved to Plainview, Minnesota, where she worked to renovate a 19-room, 1872 house. At that time, she came to specialize in calligraphy, keeping it affordable by making prints and hand water coloring those. The prints became so popular in the region that she had trouble keeping up with demand. In addition, she organized an annual art show with demonstrations at Corn on the Cob Days, a long-time tradition in the area. An allergy to molds finally forced her and her family to move to the more arid foothills above Boulder, Colorado. At first, her calligraphy skyrocketed there. She kept five consignment shops stocked with it at a time. The advent of computer graphics, however, lessened the demand for handwritten calligraphy. Her sales dropped off and the consignment shops closed. A dedicated member of the Scared Heart of Mary Catholic Church in Boulder, she and Milt ran the congregation's annual art fair. The blazing skies above her Boulder Heights home in 2010 led to a new series of paintings through which she captured the Fourmile Canyon fire. Nancy was also a writer, writing a self-published book and running a series of workshops on saving money in a rough economy. She also penned several chapters of a book, which was to chronicle her life as a mother. Nancy had fought with a number of illnesses and injuries throughout her life, bravely battling breast cancer and fibromyalgia as well as hip, knee and back injuries. A 2013 back surgery left her paralyzed. More recently infections and another injury caused major setbacks. Finally, these became too much for her body. She is survived by her husband and children; her grandchildren: Maverick, Madeline, Mitchell, Morgan, Matthias, Mary and Mica Marasch and Benjamin and Kurt Ouellette; and her siblings Michael Vanevenhoven, Mary Ellen Lamers and Janice Thomas. Her funeral, burial and lunch will take place 1 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 13 , at Sacred Heart of Mary, 6739 South Boulder Road, Boulder. Donations may be made, in the name of Nancy Anne Marasch, to the Alzheimer's Foundation of America at alzfdn.org or 1-866-232-8484.