The Art of Hero
An American military hero is armed with nothing more than a paint brush.
Kaziah Hancock is revered as an American hero, but she doesn’t even own a military uniform. She’s served her country and the military for the last 10 years, but there are no dog tags that hang with her name printed on them.
She’s received more than 15 honors and awards from her country and the state of Utah where she resides and is known as the “goat woman” and has been the keynote speaker at several events But instead of being armed with the expected tools of a service person, she’s armed with oil and canvas. Her signature move: a precise brush stroke.
The life she has created for herself is a life which proves that it only takes one person to make a difference to someone else, and sometimes, to the entire nation. Known for her compassion and determination, Kaziah Hancock is a woman who has beaten the odds and, through her hundreds of completed paintings of fallen soldiers, lives to tell the stories of those who no longer can.
Born into a polygamist sect in Utah, Kaziah holds the privilege of freedom close to her heart as she had to fight to regain her own. In a news report from KARE 11, a local Minnesota media outlet, Kaziah says, “I don’t know how political I am. I don’t get into all that crap. I just like freedom, OK?”
The fiery rancher is an adoptive mother to many fallen soldiers as she brings them back to life with a paintbrush in her bedroom studio. Her tribute to those men and women who have fought to protect our freedom began when she heard on the radio of the first fallen soldier from Utah who lost his life serving in Iraq.
“I’ll tell ya, the entire world stopped,” she remembers. “I sat there, dead sober, tears streaming down my face and a desire that says I’ve got to make contact with his family. My little deal, being an artist, I’m gonna do a beautiful painting and give it to his family as a free gift to say I’m sorry about your loss.”
But Kaziah didn’t stop there. One painting, which she refers to as a hero portrait, turned into many and many turned into hundreds and she doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon as she stands at the wooden easel a few feet from her bed, painting and singing along to the Motown playing through her speakers.
As her brush moves slowly on the canvas she says, “Paint the eyes first, then I have my window into the soul. That’s my road map. Without that I don’t have a road map.”
She may seem rough around the edges but she has the soul of a poet and compassion that speaks for itself. And as she glances back and forth from the canvas to the soldier’s photograph she has been sent it is clear she quickly develops relationships with these individuals she has never even met. “What a sweet guy,” she says. “I believe that he is a guy that would give the shirt off of his back. I so appreciate good guys.”
To date, Kaziah has sent over 800 soldiers home to their families. But lately, Kaziah hasn’t been alone in her efforts. After painting several portraits on her own, Kaziah was able to establish Project Compassion, a non-profit organization, in 2004. Along with four other artists, Kaziah has been able to create over 2,500 portraits for families who have been suffering. One of these artists is another Utah native, Anne Marie Oborn, who was approached by Kaziah and asked to join her in her mission.
Although she never thought she would be in the company of so many soldiers, Anne accepted and hasn’t looked back. She is featured in another local news broadcast saying, “I’m not a soldier and I’m not a hero, so, the only way that I can do that is with my brush.”
Currently, the artists of Project Compassion are able to paint hero portraits, at no monetary cost, to the families of “any American military or law enforcement casualty who has died in active service since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.” Portraits can be done for families who have lost individuals prior to 9/11, but because Project Compassion isn’t funded to produce an unlimited amount of portraits, there are set fees to cover their costs. The organization wishes to one day be staffed and funded adequately, which would enable them to create portraits for families whose heroes served our country in previous years.
The artists of Project Compassion ask that families fill out a one-page form, provide three, high-quality photographs and a short description of the soldier to help guide them in the creation of the portrait. George and Patty Lutz are parents of a fallen soldier, their son Tony, who sent in a photograph and a description of their son, which spoke loudly to Kaziah. The picture was of their son Tony holding his two young children.
“What I love about that painting … is the love he has for his family and for his children,” Kaziah says smiling peacefully. “That’s what I want to paint.”
Watching George and Patty’s faces as they open the box that contains their son’s face, paints the clear picture, so to speak, that Kaziah has a way of bringing people back to life. Tony’s father, George, tries to convey what receiving such a painting is like as tears well up in his eyes, “seeing that image that I had captured, recaptured with brushstrokes and the emotions of going back to that moment…knowing that was one of the last times I ever saw him.”
Kaziah makes no claim that what she and her organization does will fix everything, or anything for that matter. “It’s like putting a band-aid on a broken heart,” she says. Despite knowing she can’t diminish the pain of grieving families, she will continue bringing as much light as she can to their lives through her art.
“All that I hope to do, all that I can do, is to say I respect what your son has done,” she says. “I respect his commitment to try, at least try, and make the world a better place. And I want you to know that he has my respect.”
Her dedication is immense as she can no longer calculate the amount of income forfeited to paint hero portraits instead of the landscapes and other portraits that she once sold for thousands of dollars.
“I just love ‘em,” she says with glassy eyes. “It’s okay. It’s not this big goddamn sacrifice. It’s not this pain and misery that I have to go through. Hell, I’m not in misery. I’m working for a friend. They’re my buddies. We got a good thing going. This is a partnership, this is a team.”
The idea of patriotism sometimes differs from person to person and sometimes a patriot is only seen as someone carrying a rifle. Sometimes we forget that a patriot doesn’t always have their foot on a battlefield or their face covered in desert sand.
Sometimes a patriot is right under our noses, on her ranch with 100 goats and a brush in her hand fighting for those who fought for us. Fighting so they will always be remembered. A patriot is a woman who knows that she will never paint anything more appreciated than a face who fought and died for her, for our, freedom.
She stands in front of yet another face she has resurrected onto canvas, a stoic face filled with integrity, looking back at her gracefully. They seem to share a connection no one else could understand.
And as she looks upon the young hero’s face, it seems she knows exactly why she continues to paint their legacies as she says, “because you just should have been a Daddy… you should have been a husband ‘til you’re 80 years old. That would’ve been good.”
**Editors note — This is a story from the first issue of Destra Magazine. We tell positive stories centered around good deeds and good people, with a portion of our profit being donated to organizations that help others. Learn more here.”
