A Portrait of the Artist at War

Michael M. Phillips of The Wall Street Journal profiles Marine Combat Artist/Warrant Officer Michael Fay:

While other countries, such as Australia and Britain, send civilian painters to bring home their interpretations of war, Warrant Officer Fay is a rarity because he is both front-line warrior and front-line artist. He is, as far as he knows, the only active-duty combat artist in the world today.

"If you're engaged as a landscape artist, you're expected to go look at landscapes," he says. "If you're a still-life artist, you're expected to set up a Cezanne-like setting, perhaps with some interesting fabric, some peaches and a skull or two. A combat artist is expected to go into combat."

The result is work that does in images what Ernie Pyle did in his World War II newspaper columns: Convey the experiences, both frightening and mundane, of the common man thrust into war.

Like all artists, Fay's work stirs controversy:

Christopher B. Crosman, the former director of the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland, Maine, compared Warrant Officer Fay's approach to that of Winslow Homer, who painted scenes of camp life during the Civil War. "Fay puts a human face on war," Mr. Crosman wrote in the catalog for an exhibit of his paintings and drawings that the museum put on last year.
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A few antiwar demonstrators peacefully protested his Farnsworth exhibit; he ran into them when he arrived for the opening in his dark green dress uniform.

Fay himself writes:

Those of you who've been gracious enough to follow my journey can probably guess my politics. I've tried to stay off of that soap box. If you ever read Victor Davis Hanson you'll get a pretty good idea where I stand. When 9/11 happened I was a card carrying dyed in the wool liberal registered Democrat. The religion stamped on my dogtags was Unitarian. Progressive ideas and thinking still inform alot of my core values. So, in many ways I, like alot of you, resist being labeled. But unlike alot of you and many very liberal friends, I have had the benefit being out here on the front lines in the War on Terrorism. I'm like the brother-in-law of Ray Kinsella in the movie "Field of Dreams" who, when finally seeing the ball players, speaks out of his epiphany those immortal words, "don't sell the farm Ray". This is a good fight. It is worth our blood and treasure. Let's not sell the farm just yet.

A 52-year-old who wears a toothy smile, a salt-and-pepper moustache and a fleece cap with a Bohemian floppiness, Warrant Officer Fay grew up in Allentown, Pa. He snagged an art scholarship, but, as a self-described "hippie kid" in the 1960s, flailed in the confines of academia. In 1975 he dropped out of his third art school and enlisted in the Marines, "the world's finest finishing school for young men," as he calls it.

After serving as a mortarman, he left the Corps and finally got his degree in art education from Penn State University. But the pull of the military was strong, and the job market weak, so he soon returned to the Marines, this time repairing helicopter electronics in Desert Storm and in operations in Somalia and the former Yugoslavia, all the while doing art on the side.

With a daughter in grade school and the military shrinking, he left active duty in 1993 and kicked around Fredericksburg, Va., selling insurance, teaching school, restoring old homes and making furniture out of hickory twigs. Four years later, he met the then-Marine Corps artist, a reservist who owned a gallery in town. They hit it off, and, since she was retiring, she helped arrange for Mr. Fay to get back into the Marines and take over her job -- despite his age of 46 years.

Shortly after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Marines sent him to Afghanistan, with no orders other than to do art. He was deployed twice to Afghanistan and twice to Iraq. In the battle for Ubaydi, near the Syrian border, he was hit by shrapnel, a wound that was, to his good fortune, both light and in his left, nondrawing arm. Painting combat "is the real deal, and I consider myself a realist," he says.
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The infantrymen consider him something of a curiosity on the battlefield, but they generally like his work. "Did you go to school for that, sir?" asked Cpl. Jonhatan Covarrubias, peeking at the sketches.

Warrant Officer Fay did, of course, but at the same time, he remains very much a Marine. He was eating a ready-to-eat chicken-and-noodles meal for dinner recently when the outpost came under attack, from suspected rocket launchers on one side and automatic weapons fire on the other. He hurriedly put on his helmet and flak vest and raced to the roof with his assault rifle, but not his sketchpad.

"When it's hitting the fan, you don't want to miss out on the opportunity to fire back," he said.

Enjoy your visit to his gallery, and if you can spare a moment tell him thanks.

WO1 Fay:

I consider myself a liberal. A liberal in the sense of this word meaning "generous". Up until recently I was very active in a Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, sometimes referred to as the far left of American religion. Many of my liberal friends are very active in protesting this war, in wanting the troops out now. Whether the original premise for this conflict was right or wrong will, in my opinion, be determined by history long after we're gone. But let's say it is as the left insists, a morally wrong intervention. For someone like myself, who has been here multiple times and has experienced the Iraqis firsthand, the thought abandoning them to what would surely be chaos is equally wrong. These two wrongs simply don't make a right. Bush and his administration will stand before the judgment of history. Those of us who stand the ground over here now, know the critical nature of our mission, and we see it everyday in the faces of the Iraqis themselves. Faces that never make it to the American press, yet are indelibly pressed into the memories of the GIs serving them.

*****

Might I suggest the full tour?

September

October

November

December

January

February

Update: Ahhh... here's what happened

Free speech clashed with free expression on a downtown street corner Saturday as artists opposed to war protested the showing of combat paintings of Marine Sgt. Michael Fay at the Farnsworth Art Museum. Sgt. Fay stood ramrod straight when confronted by the small group of protesters upset with the Farnsworth for exhibiting his paintings of combat forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The afternoon sun reflected off the combat ribbons pinned to his green uniform, and the red chevrons on his sleeves glinted in the finish of his spit-shined shoes as Fay listened to his challengers.

Fay told the group he recognized their right to voice their opinion but reminded them that he had a right to express himself as well.

"I think it's great that we can have a passionate debate," Fay told the protesters. "I am not a spokesman for the war. But am I proud to be a Marine? You bet."

About a half-dozen artists carried signs and stood vigil outside the Farnsworth as the show "Fire and Ice: Marine Corps Combat Art from Afghanistan and Iraq" was previewed for museum members. Fay's paintings show soldiers carrying out their daily duties while serving on hostile ground.

Fay's paintings and drawings do not depict war, but there is no doubt as to their nature. They are set in a combat zone and include images of tanks, bombs, planes, ambulances and rifle-carrying soldiers.

The protesters objected to the show's content and what they claimed was the museum's "implicit support of war." They said a more balanced show would include images of civilian deaths and mass destruction. To represent one facet of military life in combat zones without placing it in the context of the true costs of war displayed a lack of sensitivity, they said.

"We are fighting an illegal and immoral war," Suzanne Hedrick, 73, of Nobleboro told Fay. "Without another viewpoint, without the faces of the victims and the ruining of the country, I'm deeply concerned."

In the catalog to the show, museum director Christopher Crossman compared the subject matter of Fay's work with that of Winslow Homer when he worked as an artist-journalist covering the Civil War for Harper's Weekly. Although Homer observed numerous battles, it was his paintings of everyday military encampments that were of great interest, said Crossman.

"Fay puts a human face to war," noted Crossman. "For the most part, his work consists of portraits of fellow Marines whose feelings and individuality can be read in their eyes and even in the wear and tear of their uniforms."

Crossman noted that Fay "serendipitously" stopped by the museum a few months ago to introduce his work. He said he later discovered that few of his colleagues in the museum world were aware that combat artists were still active.

The show was organized by Farnsworth curator of exhibitions Helen Ashton Fisher and Charles G. Grow, curator of the Marine Corps Combat Art Collection. It was made possible by the support of the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation.

The Marine Corps Combat Art Program was adopted in World War I. Using artists, war correspondents and photographers the program continued through each of the country's conflicts. Since the war in Vietnam, the collection has grown to include approximately 7,500 works by more than 350 artists. Over the years they have documented Marines in combat zones across the globe.

Fay spent two years in the Afghanistan and Iraq war zones, armed only with a pistol, camera and sketch bag. Some of his work was done in the field, other pieces created in his studio from images he brought home. Fay retired from the Marines in 2000, "but 9-11 changed everything," he said. Fay, who lives in the Washington area, joined a Reserve unit and was posted to the combat zones.

"These in no way, shape or form glorify war," said Fay. "It has nothing to do with anybody ever pulling a trigger. I'm an artist; we do art."

While critical of his subject matter, the protesters also were upset that Fay came to the show in full-dress uniform. They said it indicated that he was on official business and promoting war.

"The fact that he would come not dressed as an artist, but as a Marine is an affront," said Natasha Mayers of Whitefield. "I'm for real expression that's not paid for. This guy is paid for, he's been a Marine all his life, and this is a military point of view. The day-to-day part of war, which we can't imagine, is what we need to see. We need to see images that tell us the truth."

When asked his reaction to the protest, Fay said that he believed "most servicepeople would say, 'That's why we do what we do.' People have that right to express themselves in this country and I support that. Most are very pleasant, but some are mean-spirited and aggressive."

The show runs through March 27.

Fay's response would probably stun any of the protestors who could read:

This past February I had my first museum exhibition open at the Farnsworth Museum and Wyeth Center in Rockland, Maine. Wow, was I thrilled! I even had my own protesters! One of the many things they took exception with was my appearance, or as one of them complained to the local press, "I'm offended that he would come dressed as a Marine, and not as an artist." Regretably, I had left my black beret, ragged blue jeans, tweed jacket, black turtleneck and ear-ring at home. Actually, other than the beret, this is exactly the case. I, and many others found it quite ironic that the protesters, members of the very liberal Maine Alliance of Visual Artists, would be dictating what another artist should wear. (Little did they know that the Marine standing before them in his dress uniform had tested out on personality profile quizes as a "cultural creative".) Life never ceases to amaze! I am very aware that I stand astride two very different worlds. Carl Jung, the great Swiss psychiatrist, writes at length about a concept he calls individuation; the never ending process of becoming an authentic human being. (This topic is also taken up by Gail Sheehy in her best seller "Passages") What he has to say is particularly meaningful to men in mid-life, a club I more than belong to. There are, according to Jung, two distinct paths. Most opt for what he calls the "retrogressive restoration of the persona"; of electing to settle into a stereotypical pattern of behavior avoiding mental, spiritual or psychic challenges. On the other path we stay in the "tension of opposites", and thereby continue to grow to the end of our days, and perhaps beyond. I will allow you dear reader to decide which path yours truly is on, and whether I'm a black zebra with white stripes, or a while zebra with black stripes. I leave you with a little Emily Dickinsonish poem of mine:

I am color subtle, muted, tertiary
Think not to know me with palette simple and primary.
For I am twilights November,
And gloam in February