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thedrifter
12-26-05, 06:52 AM
Artist honors the fallen with collages
Monday, December 26, 2005
The Youngstown Vindicator

Simon joins other among artists who use their crafts to honor fallen Americans.

YOUNGSTOWN (AP) — Artist Ray Simon never knew Marine Lance Cpl. Andrew W. Nowacki, but Simon has painted his story.

In the intricate, airbrushed collage there's an image of a rose-cheeked soldier, who looks barely out of high school, thrust into the front lines of war. There's the illustration of a hulking green tank and an armored humvee, its gunner silhouetted in sunset, rolling toward Baghdad.

Nowacki died in one of those humvees in February when he volunteered to be the gunner during a mission in Iraq because he was single, only 24, and the other guys — married with children — had too much to lose. A reservist, he was assigned to a unit based in Erie, Pa.

Simon, a 43-year-old artist known for his paintings of sports stars, painted "Operation Iraqi Freedom" in 2003, inspired by the start of the conflict. As casualties climbed, the work became part of a mission to honor each of the more than 2,100 U.S. soldiers who have died in Iraq.

With the help of a national funeral services company, Simon sends a print of the painting to the families of the fallen. More than 2,000 prints — worth at least $130,000 based on the retail price of $65 — have been given away to about 1,600 families.

"If it comforts the families just a little bit then we've made a contribution," Simon says.

Simon is among artists around the country who use their crafts to honor those who have died in the war.

More artistic efforts

"Honor the Fallen," a Davis, Calif., group, helps friends and relatives of slain soldiers make quilt panels memorializing their loved ones. The plan is to join the squares together to make a huge quilt and create a traveling exhibit that will tour the nation.

Carlos Jones, an artist in Louisville, Tenn., has donated more than 500 memorial portraits to families of soldiers who have died in Iraq. He uses digital technogoly to meld the soldiers' photographs with images of a bald eagle, an American flag and a poem onto a 20-inch-by-24-inch canvas.

He, too, has the goal of reaching the families of every dead soldier. "Our heroes program is dedicated to helping heal the loss of our fallen heroes," his Web site says.

Simon personalizes each print — lifelike 16-inch-by-20 inch montages of military images, such as the tank, the nameless soldiers and the toppling of Saddam Hussein's statue by U.S. troops — by inserting a photo of the soldier in an oval die-cut.

"The paintings, they're empty shells, but when you put your loved one's picture in there, it becomes alive," he says. "Then the painting tells a story of the soldier."

In the framed print that hangs on Sheila Nowacki's living room wall, there's one section in particular she says tells the best chapter of her son's life at war.

Important image

"The one image that really captures our attention was the one of the little Iraqi girl holding the American flag," the mother says softly, recalling Andrew's letters home that always talked about the children. He'd scrawl "Wacki" on their tiny arms with a black Sharpie because that's what he told them to call him, and he'd pose for pictures with the beaming youngsters who considered him a hero.

"The stories he had about the Iraqi kids was what was important to us," Sheila Nowacki says.

After her son's death, people sent military memorabilia by the truckload to the family's home in suburban Cleveland as a sign of sympathy. The Nowackis put away all of it, except Simon's print.

Andrew Nowacki, a police officer known as "Ace" who loved telling jokes, wouldn't like his childhood home turned into a Marines museum, his mom says. And besides, those items ignited too much pain.

But the painting tells an uplifting story through its blended vignettes that look so real it's hard to believe they were hand-painted. Simon uses acrylic paints in an airbrush gun to create each image and then puts them together using a computer to create the montage-like effect.

"This one," Sheila Nowacki says about her print. "It doesn't hurt me to look at this one. It's helpful to look at, and it is a beautiful, breathing picture."

Simon says he chose the images in the painting because he thought they best symbolized every soldier's contribution. He got inspiration from historic quotes and letters from soldiers' families. The softness and realism, he says, are by design.

"There are no hard edges in life," he says. "The airbrush really captures that same effect."

Simon's sports paintings include inductees into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, late racing great Dale Earnhardt Sr. and special sports moments such as the last play at the old Cleveland Browns Stadium.

Wilbert Funeral Services Inc., based in Broadview, Ill., has covered the cost of reproducing and delivering the prints. Simon first worked with the company years ago on a commemorative painting he created to honor World War II veterans.

Dedicated staff

From a tiny studio in downtown Youngstown, Simon's office manager Ryan LaCivita spends hours on the Internet reading news articles about American soldiers killed in battle and looking for clues that may lead him to their families.

A staff of two used to do this detective work, but graphic artist Tim Sullivan has helped bring home the war: Sullivan, a member of the Ohio National Guard, was deployed to Iraq earlier this year.

Once the families are found, Mark McCool, who does marketing at Wilbert, hops on an airplane or in a car and feverishly tries to deliver a print before the soldier's funeral. Many of the families who have received them display the artwork at services.

The team desperately wants to find the more than 500 remaining families.

"We've barely scratched the surface of families who need the prints," says McCool, whose son was with the Army in Kosovo and Kuwait. McCool says he spent many nights dreaming about the bad things that could have happened to his boy, and that's why he doesn't mind spending time delivering the prints in person.

"What these people are going through is what I woke up from a nightmare from every night until my son came home," he says. "I feel like I owe this."

Ellie