NEWPORT BEACH – On a day when President Obama caused a stir by dropping by a Corona del Mar house for breakfast, Miriam Baker doted on a Republican icon's famous face a few miles away.
"He had a crooked smile," Baker said of Ronald Reagan, whose likeness she has sculpted twice recently for local public works of art. "I re-did his face so many times until I was happy with it."
Monday is Presidents Day, a federal holiday on which we honor George Washington (born Feb. 22, 1732) and Abraham Lincoln (born Feb. 12, 1809) and hear a lot about the office. But memorializing presidents, especially recent ones, can be tricky. Reagan's a perfect example.
The 40th president died in 2004 at age 93, and he's revered by many Republicans. Yet supporters who wanted a statue of him built in Newport Beach faced some opposition: It was funded with $50,000 in private donations, but some residents said it didn't belong in a prominent public place like the City Center complex, as the City Council had planned. Its home shifted to Castaways Park, and finally to Bonita Canyon Sports Park, where it was unveiled Oct. 9. Less than a month later, it was damaged by vandals. A Reagan bust at Chapman University was stolen last summer and never found.
(Click on the photo above to see more sculptures by Baker, as well as some of the ways we honor Reagan and other presidents.)
Baker, who created both pieces, said the thieves probably wanted to sell the bronze for scrap. She repaired the statue and sculpted a new bust for Chapman. She's placed 21 pieces on campus, including Washington and Lincoln, as well as Mozart and Ella Fitzgerald. The clay originals crowd her cozy two-story house on Balboa Island, like party guests.
Asked whether she's a liberal, she winces and nods. But she said she's more interested in people's faces than politics. As for Reagan, she grew to like him while crafting his eyes, nose and that movie-star smile. "He sounded like a really caring person."
She'd love to take a crack at a Democratic president. Like maybe the one who'd just left town in his motorcade Thursday morning.
"He's got such an interesting face – an engaging smile."
Some former presidents are honored more fervently than others: In Orange County, particular attention is paid to our own Richard Milhous Nixon, who was born Jan. 9, 1913, in Yorba Linda, site of the Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. Nixon, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan are honored in various ways around O.C. Even William Howard Taft has tiny streets named for him in Irvine and Garden Grove.
Naming things after presidents becomes easier over time, says Benjamin Cawthra, an associate professor of history at Cal State Fullerton. He notes that the Washington Monument wasn’t dedicated until 1885, more than 85 years his death. Washington National Airport was renamed after Reagan in 1998, a mere nine years after the Gipper left office.
"I think it is to be expected that without the elapse of a considerable amount of time, memorials to political figures are bound to be interpreted as anything but neutral," Cawthra said in an e-mail. "They will be seen as partisan expressions and therefore have their legitimacy questioned."