After learning of the Aug. 26 suicide bombing in Kabul, Afghanistan, in which 13 U.S. service members were killed, artist Kristy Dubinsky changed course on a painting she was doing for this year's ArtPrize2021 show in Grand Rapids, Mich.
The Elizabeth Forward High School art teacher and artist who specializes in military themes says that "a voice in my head just kept telling me to ‘paint the 13.’”
So that's what she did: "I immediately knew I needed to complete one portrait each day for 13 consecutive days for the 13 fallen heroes on 13 separate canvases. I just needed to honor them in that way – I didn’t have a choice.”
The ArtPrize organizers, who know the artist from past shows, said they would do whatever it took to accommodate the new series of paintings. Ms. Dubinsky realized that, with it being Sept. 2, she had just 13 days to complete them before she had to go to the show. So she got to work.
She started the first portrait — of Navy Corpsmen Maxton “Max” Soviak, a native of Berlin Heights, Ohio — in her art classroom after school while she was waiting for parent open house to begin. She painted the others in her basement studio at her home in Irwin, Westmoreland County. Each portrait took six and eight hours to complete as she worked from photos downloaded from the internet on her iPad.
It wasn’t easy.
“My studio was such a sad place with all of those beautiful people – I just can’t imagine the grief their families are going through,” Ms. Dubinsky said. When finishing up each night, she said goodnight to them.
Each day she posted her latest portrait on social media so her friends could meet that hero. The comments pushed her on — “Kristy, these paintings are amazing” and “You are wonderful” and “Thank you for doing this.”
On Sept. 14, exhausted from a dozen late nights, she finished the final portrait of Sacramento, Calif., area native, Marine Sgt. Nicole Gee. Ms. Dubinsky had all of the portraits professionally photographed — so she could make prints of them — and framed before loading them into her truck for the seven-hour drive to Michigan.
She displayed the series in a semi-circle of 13 simple black frames on easels with each soldier’s name engraved on a silver bar.
A disabled former Marine, Shelley Frontera, 47, who learned of Ms. Dubinsky’s progress by watching her daily TikTok videos, drove 4½ hours from her home in Fraser, Mich., to honor each of the heroes with a bud vase containing a red, a white and a blue rose.
Ms. Frontera described seeing the exhibit in person as “overwhelming, breathtaking and amazing. ... It literally stopped me in my tracks. ... All I could think about is that these soldiers are younger than my son.”
Taking the flowers “was just a small gesture to honor the young heroes…. They deserve so much more,” Ms. Frontera said, adding that Ms. Dubinsky “doesn’t know how much she has touched veterans.”
The portraits show the Marines, Army and Navy members in full dress uniforms, except for one. Ms. Dubinsky decided to paint the now iconic photo of Sgt. Gee in her fatigues inside the Kabul airport gate cradling an Afghan infant passed to her as people fled the country. “I read that Sergeant Gee said, ‘I love my job,’ and that’s the way I wanted people to meet her.”
The paintings are on display through Sunday, Oct. 3, at the JW Marriott hotel in Grand Rapids, as part of largest annual juried international art show in the world with 900 artists, more than 100 venues and thousands of visitors. But they’ve already been seen beyond that.
The dozen brothers and sisters of Corpsman Soviak asked to borrow his original portrait for his viewing and funeral service on Sept. 12 and 13 near Sandusky, Ohio. Even though she was swamped getting ready for the Michigan exhibit, Ms. Dubinsky drove 1½ hours and back to meet the family halfway to lend it to them.
On Sept. 21, the family of Marine Staff Sgt. Darin Taylor Hoover of Salt Lake City, Utah, requested that Ms. Dubinsky overnight a print of his portrait for his burial ceremony in Arlington National Cemetery that Friday, which she did.
Grand Rapids’ Matt Imm cried when he saw, in person, the portrait of his Rancho Cucamonga [Calif.] High School best friend, Lance Cpl. Dylan Merola.
Mr. Imm, who was unable to travel back to California to attend the funeral, also discovered Ms. Dubinsky’s exhibit through TikTok. “I told her ‘thank you’ so many times,” he said, adding that the painting of his buddy “looks better than an actual photo of him. ... She painted him perfectly.”
Once ArtPrize 2021 is over, Ms. Dubinsky says she plans to keep the original portrait collection together so she can possibly share it at other upcoming exhibits. But this fall she will give each family a hand-painted giclée replica of their hero’s portrait. They will hardly know the difference, she said — “A giclée is considered the world’s best technique for reproducing original art.”
Since graduating from Edinboro (Pa.) University in 2002 with a bachelor of fine arts and completing her teaching degree at Carlow University in 2004, Ms. Dubinsky said the inspiration for all her art, including acrylic paintings and chainsaw carvings, comes from her desire for direct connection with her subjects. “Emotion is everything in artwork…. I want people who view my art to feel,” she said. In fact, she contributes all of her success as an artist to “putting my heart and soul into everything I create.”
She has a special connection with her artwork that has a military theme, partly because of her admiration for her late grandfather, Edward Huszar, who served in World War II. “Just listening to his stories and how proud he was, inspires me,” she said. “Like the soldiers in Kabul, the World War II heroes were all young men and women who had so much life ahead of them.”
Her other recent works, “Weight of War” and “Work is Done,” pay tribute to veterans. She also has lots of requests for her chainsaw carved pieces such as flags, crosses and other patriotic items.
After a whirlwind September, she’s taking time to reflect on her recent experience with the Kabul heroes, but it won’t be long before another inspiration comes along, most likely a military one.
“That’s what I want to focus on,” she says. “It just feels right to me.”
See more of Ms. Dubinsky’s work on Facebook at KristyDubinskyArt or TikTok @KristyDubinskyArt..
Jane Milner is a freelance writer who lives in Cranberry: janemilner01@gmail.com.
First Published: October 1, 2021, 12:15 p.m.
