Page 26 - September Issue

PHOTO BY JAMES C. SVEHLA JR.
Honoring the unique tribute adorning the Lodge 7 front entrance and the cop who created the masterpiece
n BY MITCHELL KRUGEL
Entering the Chicago FOP Lodge 7 Hall feels like walking into a museum, even a shrine. The “exhibit” that graces the foyer combines the aura of the Art Institute with the eras of the Chicago Historical Society.
The glory of the Lodge bursts out here in living color with images of its forefathers and the portrait of the mayor who finally empowered Chicago Police Officers to earn the living they deserved, as well as the specter of a “family” member lost in the line of duty. Against the backdrop of the marble staircase and the half-wall of mir- rors shines the beginnings of the FOP 7, and in glorious black-and- white radiates the history of Grand Lodge in a tribute to its 100th birthday celebrated this year.
This entire liturgy has been “muraled” on an illustrious canvas that is a horse.
A horse?
If Mona Lisa and Secretariat spawned an offspring, it would look like this horse. It is one of the Chicago Police Memorial Foundation’s Horses of Honor, commissioned beginning in 2014 as tributes to the city’s officers that made the ultimate sacrifice. More than 100 have been painted and are displayed everywhere in the city, from out front of the original Gino’s East to Harry Caray’s to Hawthorne Race Track
26 CHICAGO LODGE 7 n SEPTEMBER 2015
to the corner of Michigan and Ohio to the foyer of the Lodge.
President Dean Angelo commissioned the artwork in the foyer to bring together what has made the FOP, Lodge 7 and law enforcement officers so grand, so distinguished. “A place of honor,” Angelo declares.
The horse whisperer that painted the magnificent work of art is a creative genius named Peter Bucks. He has been commissioned to paint six Horses of Honor, the Lodge’s being the fifth and the sixth coming on order from Chicago – the rock band, not the city – and his portfolio boasts so much brilliance that he attracted an offer to make art for Disney. Bucks passed on that one because he didn’t want to leave his day job working in the Gang Enforcement Unit in the Department’s Bureau of Organized Crime. He is now 14 years into the job and so much a cop that he married his beloved Wendy whom he met at the academy and who works in a tactical unit at 016.
“Horse Sense,” “Gift Horse,” “All the Pretty Horses,” Straight from the Horse’s Mouth” and all the other one-liners are appropriate here because the words help articulate how this art imitates life: the life of Chicago coppers who know no bounds in doing their jobs; the life of a prideful union built by the Nolans and the Dineens and the LeFevours to make sure those coppers have always received their due; and the life of an artist humbled and blessed to be a member and to be the one to tell the FOP story with a medium that he is uniquely talented to express.