You may not immediately associate lips with laughter — we tend to file laughter under sound, something that comes from the belly or the throat — but every laugh in the history of human joy has had to pass through a pair of lips on its way out. The mouth is the doorway: where the smile begins, where the laugh escapes, where the belly-shaking can't-breathe kind of joy finally hits the air. The tulip itself is the perfect emblem for this mug. Tulips burst out of the ground after a long gray winter, brilliantly colored, refusing to be subtle — the same way real laughter arrives, all at once, after too long of holding things in. Beth Grimm built the pun into the flower (two lips, of course) and painted the kind of bloom that looks like it just heard something funny. The mug is for the laughers, the joy-leakers, the ones who refuse to perform a serious mood when something is actually funny — and for the mornings when the best thing the day can do is start with a small, real laugh.
About Artist Beth Grimm:
Beth Grimm is an Iowa native, a photographer, painter, mixed-media artist, and writer who has spent more than seventy-five years building a life shaped by creativity, resilience, and reinvention. Her path has never been linear — and that is precisely the point.
After marrying young, raising two children, and supporting her husband through dental school, Beth reached a turning point in her thirties: she had built a life, but somewhere along the way she had lost connection with her own. In 1978, she moved to California with her kids and started over. She helped launch her brother's law practice, put herself through paralegal school, and then made the audacious decision to go to law school. She was 34 when she started, 38 when she graduated, and by 40 she had built her own practice. For the next three decades she became known as the “California Condo Guru” and “The Plain English Lawyer” — a homeowners association attorney who taught, wrote, and spoke her way into helping thousands of people navigate complex systems with clarity and confidence.
Creativity was never separate from any of it. Writing, photography, and art were how Beth processed, expressed, and connected through every chapter. She studied photography seriously and traveled for years to workshops across the country, and as she began transitioning out of law in her mid-sixties, photography quietly became her anchor. At 70, she marked a single unforgettable day: her retirement, her first art exhibition, and her birthday, all at once. Today her work is rooted in photography but extends far beyond it — layered, expressive pieces built through digital manipulation, collage, and mixed media. She was teaching iPhone-based artmaking long before it became widely recognized, and spent two years of the pandemic teaching art online to help others find their own creative voice.
For nearly a decade, while living in Benicia, California, Beth developed a daily practice of walking and observing — capturing what she calls her “story images,” the colorful, layered, narrative-driven moments that became the foundation of her artistic work. In 2025, she relocated to Hillsborough, North Carolina, where four generations of her family now live within a few miles of one another. She is currently writing her memoir and has already published The Great Grandpa Chronicles, a book about her father and the unexpected, hard-won path toward understanding and forgiveness.
Beth lives now by the same words she offers anyone who will listen: “Create as if your heart depends on it — because it does.” Her work is a quiet argument that it is never too late, that every chapter counts, and that the most interesting lives are the ones that loop back to the thing that was always there.
Beth Grimm is a valued member of the Monarch Shoppe family.
About this Mug:
- Available in 11 oz, 15 oz, and 20 oz
- Premium white gloss finish
- Printed using dye sublimation technology — the image is fused directly into the ceramic surface for vivid, true-to-life color that won't fade, crack, or peel. Ever.
- Handle stays cool even when your water is boiling
- Microwave and dishwasher safe
- Print quality is exceptional — exactly as pictured
A Kate Shu Collective exclusive, available only at the Monarch Shoppe.
You may not immediately associate lips with laughter — we tend to file laughter under sound, something that comes from the belly or the throat — but every laugh in the history of human joy has had to pass through a pair of lips on its way out. The mouth is the doorway: where the smile begins, where the laugh escapes, where the belly-shaking can't-breathe kind of joy finally hits the air. The tulip itself is the perfect emblem for this mug. Tulips burst out of the ground after a long gray winter, brilliantly colored, refusing to be subtle — the same way real laughter arrives, all at once, after too long of holding things in. Beth Grimm built the pun into the flower (two lips, of course) and painted the kind of bloom that looks like it just heard something funny. The mug is for the laughers, the joy-leakers, the ones who refuse to perform a serious mood when something is actually funny — and for the mornings when the best thing the day can do is start with a small, real laugh.
About Artist Beth Grimm:
Beth Grimm is an Iowa native, a photographer, painter, mixed-media artist, and writer who has spent more than seventy-five years building a life shaped by creativity, resilience, and reinvention. Her path has never been linear — and that is precisely the point.
After marrying young, raising two children, and supporting her husband through dental school, Beth reached a turning point in her thirties: she had built a life, but somewhere along the way she had lost connection with her own. In 1978, she moved to California with her kids and started over. She helped launch her brother's law practice, put herself through paralegal school, and then made the audacious decision to go to law school. She was 34 when she started, 38 when she graduated, and by 40 she had built her own practice. For the next three decades she became known as the “California Condo Guru” and “The Plain English Lawyer” — a homeowners association attorney who taught, wrote, and spoke her way into helping thousands of people navigate complex systems with clarity and confidence.
Creativity was never separate from any of it. Writing, photography, and art were how Beth processed, expressed, and connected through every chapter. She studied photography seriously and traveled for years to workshops across the country, and as she began transitioning out of law in her mid-sixties, photography quietly became her anchor. At 70, she marked a single unforgettable day: her retirement, her first art exhibition, and her birthday, all at once. Today her work is rooted in photography but extends far beyond it — layered, expressive pieces built through digital manipulation, collage, and mixed media. She was teaching iPhone-based artmaking long before it became widely recognized, and spent two years of the pandemic teaching art online to help others find their own creative voice.
For nearly a decade, while living in Benicia, California, Beth developed a daily practice of walking and observing — capturing what she calls her “story images,” the colorful, layered, narrative-driven moments that became the foundation of her artistic work. In 2025, she relocated to Hillsborough, North Carolina, where four generations of her family now live within a few miles of one another. She is currently writing her memoir and has already published The Great Grandpa Chronicles, a book about her father and the unexpected, hard-won path toward understanding and forgiveness.
Beth lives now by the same words she offers anyone who will listen: “Create as if your heart depends on it — because it does.” Her work is a quiet argument that it is never too late, that every chapter counts, and that the most interesting lives are the ones that loop back to the thing that was always there.
Beth Grimm is a valued member of the Monarch Shoppe family.
About this Mug:
- Available in 11 oz, 15 oz, and 20 oz
- Premium white gloss finish
- Printed using dye sublimation technology — the image is fused directly into the ceramic surface for vivid, true-to-life color that won't fade, crack, or peel. Ever.
- Handle stays cool even when your water is boiling
- Microwave and dishwasher safe
- Print quality is exceptional — exactly as pictured
A Kate Shu Collective exclusive, available only at the Monarch Shoppe.
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