After sudden passing, friends of Mylan Rakich look to make a difference
Photos and story by James Hill
Mylan Rakich relaxes on one of his art installations, circa 2017.
A beloved member of Portland Community College’s Art Department may have passed away this past summer, but his memory and impact of his art will live on thanks to friends and coworkers
At just 56 years of age, Mylan Rakich passed away suddenly from a heart attack. He had taught for nearly 25 years at PCC, leaving behind a wife and two boys and a legacy of sculptural works. His work is in the permanent collection at the college’s Rock Creek and Cascade campuses, as well as at the Hillsboro Center and at Clackamas Community College.
Rakich having fun at his home.
A group of his friends and colleagues are raising funds to purchase one of Rakich’s sculptures to be installed at PCC’s Carolyn Moore House in Tigard. The purchase would help his family establish a college fund for the boys, 12 and 6. A retrospective is planned for the Helzer Art Gallery at Rock Creek Campus from March 5 through April 25 where the sculpture will be dedicated.
“I knew Mylan as a colleague for 20 years,” said Mark Andres, PCC art instructor. “I adored his positive energy, his openness to grow and develop both as an educator and as an artist. He inspired his students and he inspired me.
“Although he worked in many materials, it was in steel that Mylan’s Sculpture achieved real transcendence,” Andres added. “Those steel constructions— vertical, elegant, weightless, delicate, were gestural metaphors for a body dancing, singing, stretching, vibrating like a harp, joyfully alive. Mylan made solid steel to defy gravity and he made a tiny piece of cardboard supporting a plaster spike look like it weighed a ton. It was the magic of art. It was a refusal to reduce things to a dichotomy and let the energies in those forms embody their contradictions for each viewer.”
A New York native, he was a respected member of the academic and artistic communities in Portland. Rakich joined PCC in 2004, teaching drawing, design and sculpture and in 2009 began art instruction. After earning a two-year certificate in Welding Technology from PCC, he went on to teach welding at Clackamas from 2007-2013.
In his welding shop.
His sculptures and artwork were featured in group and individual expositions throughout Oregon and beyond. This included being displayed in both public and private collections across the West Coast, as well as in Wisconsin and Georgia.
Rakich was represented by Butters Gallery in Portland and had solo shows at Buckley Gallery (University of Portland, where he also taught) and at Cascade. He received his bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from State University of New York at Purchase and his master’s in Fine Arts at Portland State University.
In 2017, Rakich added to the Rock Creek Campus art collection by installing his steel sculpture “Trajector #2.” At 12 feet tall and 850 pounds, it was originally made in 2010 at Clackamas Community College’s invitational sculpture build-off. PCC bought the sculpture as part of its capital construction art purchases through the 2008 voter-approved bond measure.
Showcasing his sculpture ‘Shine’ to college leadership during Art Beat 2007.
“The art collection there is very exciting, so I really wanted the sculpture to be outdoors participating with the other work,” Rakich said of the sculpture.
In 2007, Rakich was PCC’s featured artist for its 20th Annual Art Beat Festival. He donated his sculpture “Shine,” which is a three-dimensional metal sculpture installation and is patterned after various architectural elements. He said the inspiration for the piece was PCC and its building designs.
“The campuses are composed very nicely,” he said at the time. “What I do is I look at a building, and its exposed structure, like a support beam, to get my ideas. Rock Creek was the particular setting which inspired this piece.”
Rakich’s friends have established a Go Fund Me page to help support his family as well.
Mylan Rakich Gallery
About James Hill
James G. Hill, an award-winning journalist and public relations writer, is the Director of Public Relations at Portland Community College. A graduate of Portland State University, James has worked as a section editor for the Newberg Graphic... more »