Dec. 6, 2008 is a day locked in the memories of most Canadians. It was on that day they heard the News that Canada had lost its 99th, 100th, and 101st soldiers in the Afghanistan conflict.
Cambridge-based artist Dave Sopha, sitting over his morning coffee, read the same News in his local Newspaper and it would set him on a course to preserve and honor the memories of the men and women of the Canadian Armed Forces who gave the ultimate sacrifice in the war-torn country where Canadians have been fighting since 2002.
“Until every man and woman comes home, I’m going to keep painting,” Sopha said of the Portraits of Honour mural featuring the faces of Canada’s fallen Afghanistan war heroes he started painting in 2008. Now with 155 portraits on the 10-foot by 50-foot mural, Sopha, a life member of the Kinsman Club, has teamed up with Kin Canada and is set to take the mural to some 180 communities across Canada, including a stopover in Mount Forest on June 3 for a special fundraising event.
Mount Forest Kin member Gord Trecartin is one of three directors of the Portraits of Honour national tour project for Kin Canada. Money raised from the tour goes to the Military Family Fund to assist returning soldiers who have been injured in the conflict and their families here at home.
“You’ve got soldiers whose buddy is blown up right beside him; it’s traumatic,” Trecartin said of the impact the war has on returning soldiers.
“Our goal as Kinsmen and Kin Canada … is to let Canadians know these men and women are doing their job,” Sopha added.
The mural is a labor of love for Sopha who worked 16-hour days, seven days a week on painting the portraits. He has set up shop in a makeshift gallery at the Kin headquarters building in Cambridge.
“I got obsessed with it,” Sopha admits.
As casualties mounted, the artist has had to add portraits to the mural also adorned with over 10,000 poppies and topped off with a white dove guarding over the work and the fallen soldiers.
The cross country tour will officially kick off at Kitchener’s Bingeman Park on May 28. The mural will be housed in a special trailer that will allow visitors to see it in its true splendor and scope. Kin Canada is financing the tour and overseeing that all donations go directly to the fund, Trecartin said. He has been busy organizing the event for Mount Forest where the mural will arrive around 10am at the Mount Forest and District Sports Complex which will also be home to a fundraiser dinner later in the evening.
Mount Forest Minor Hockey has already agreed to serve the dinner. Trecartin said he expects 1,000 people will turn out for the day and dinner. He has been speaking to local schools to encourage students to get involved in fundraisers for the event.
“We’ve suggested that if the kids wanted to do a project they could have a special presentation at the dinner if they wanted to,” Trecartin said. “What we want is to have the students engaged in this project.”
According to Trecartin, representatives from the Armed Forces, local Legions, police, and fire department will also be on-hand along with local and area service clubs. Wellington North Township has already declared the day Portraits of Honour Day, Trecartin said.
Sopha said it takes him about 80 hours to do a single portrait in oil paint. He wants each portrait to be true to the soldier it reflects. During the tour he hopes to meet many family members interested in sharing memories of their fallen relative. His paints will be close at hand if relatives want any changes done to the individual portraits and if he has to add any new casualties.
“If they say the eyes are grey, I’ll change them.”
He hopes to learn as much as he can about the individuals he has painted and about their lives.
It’s a philosophy shared with Kin Canada.
“The project will provide Canadians with a chance to grieve together, remember together, celebrate together and heal together,” a Kin Canada pamphlet states. “It will act as a catalyst, we hope, for the creation of ancillary events and fundraising opportunities by community groups.”
Sopha brushes off those who have criticized Canada’s military role in Afghanistan.
“I had an Afghanistan interpreter come into my studio and I asked him if our guys doing any good,” Sopha said. “He said without the Canadians we’d be further back than we are now.”
What he was talking about, Sopha added, is greater security in the country with more students, girls and boys, being able to go to school and learn, businesses opening and thriving in a society where freedom is slowly arriving, in stark contrast to the harsh Taliban regime.
The mural will make a stop in Ottawa on Remembrance Day 11/11/11 as part of the cross country tour.
Trecartin said tickets for the Mount Forest stopover are $10 for the ceremony, or $25 for the ceremony and dinner, which starts at 6 p.m.
The mural will eventually end up in a museum, possibly the War Museum in Ottawa, and serve as reminder to future generations of those who served and died to bring peace to Afghanistan.
