Long ago, when Michael Reagan was an art student in Seattle, he started to sketch a portrait of a beloved teacher.
That teacher was William Cumming, one of the masters of the Northwest School of painting known for its light, shadow and regional style.
At home in Edmonds on Friday, Reagan thought back on the day he tried to draw his instructor’s face. “Bill Cumming told me, ‘Don’t do that, nobody wants faces,’” the 60-year-old Reagan said.
Today, hundreds and hundreds of people want desperately to see the faces Reagan creates on cold press illustration board with his Staedtler drawing pencils.
Reagan was honored Dec. 6 by the Snohomish County Chapter of the American Red Cross, which presented the artist with a surprise award at its Real Heroes breakfast. Since 2004, he’s been drawing portraits of American servicemen and servicewomen killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. He presents them, for free, to widows and widowers, mothers, fathers and children mourning the loss of loved ones at war.
“They’ve given enough, they’ve paid enough,” said Reagan, who on Friday had completed his 950th portrait.
Nearly 4,000 Americans have died in Iraq since the war began in 2003. In 2004, the year he began what he calls the Fallen Heroes Project (www.fallenheroesproject.org), Reagan drew 32 portraits. “Now I do three a day, sometimes four,” he said.
Just completed Friday was a portrait of Army Spc. James Lee Adair, a 26-year-old Texan killed June 29 in Baghdad when his vehicle hit an explosive device. In the sketch with him is Avery Lee Adair, a baby daughter born in September, after her father’s death.
Reagan was in a hurry to mail the artwork off to Adair’s mother-in-law in DeBerry, Texas, so she could surprise the soldier’s widow for Christmas.
Often, connections are made by word of mouth. If a family discovers him and asks, he’ll gladly create a portrait. He’s done them for memorial services, holidays, even for a wedding where the bride had recently lost her brother. Reagan was featured on a segment of “NBC Nightly News.” For some reason, he gets many requests from North Carolina, Texas and Iowa.
A Marine Corps veteran, Reagan served in Vietnam in 1967 and ‘68. He was recently recognized with an American Legion Patriot Award, and is featured in American Legion magazine this month.
He is retired after working 30 years for the University of Washington, where he was director of trademarks and licensing. He designed not the current Husky logo, but the one before that, the regal looking dog Reagan was wearing on a shirt when I visited.
His mission comes with considerable costs, in addition to his countless hours. With materials and shipping costs, he spends as much as $100 on each drawing. In his home studio are stacks of big envelopes, some filled with portraits ready to be mailed to families, others sent to him with photographs Reagan uses to draw the lifelike images. His habit is to rise early, as early as 2 a.m., and work in predawn solitude. He is guided by a spirit he struggles to explain.
“I’m just an artist who’s been given this opportunity, but I’m a believer. I think there are things going on. There are three people in this room,” he said. He gestured toward the two of us, and then to a photograph and partly finished portrait of a young man on his drawing table. “Their spirit guides me through,” he said.
Years before his Fallen Heroes Project, Reagan used his art for charity. Trained at the Burnley School of Professional Art, now the Art Institute of Seattle, he worked as a computer programmer before an opportunity came along to do portraits of performers at the old Cirque Dinner Theatre in Seattle. From there came celebrity connections that brought him work doing portraits of Hollywood stars, sports figures and political leaders.
Autographed copies of these works have been sold at area auctions benefiting Boys &Girls Clubs, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and other charities. He also worked with the Seattle Seahawks on collectible team posters.
Now, he has a calling that seems without end. How could he know in 2004 that at the dawn of 2008 his country would still be at war? “I’ll do this until I’m not asked to do it anymore. This is my life,” Reagan said. “This is the most important thing I’ve ever done.”
He doesn’t discuss politics. “I’m working with families from all across this country. They have every view. I don’t want any family, pro or con, to not get this portrait done because of my views,” he said.
Looking at the just-finished portrait, Reagan imagines a sad holiday made better by his work.
“That young man’s wife and daughter don’t know yet,” he said. “She’ll find out on Christmas.”
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlstein@heraldnet.com.
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