Local teen’s talent flies over city hall

WASILLA — Ever hear of Micheal Horsman? Don’t worry, we hasn’t either until recently.

Chances are, however, if you’ve passed by Wasilla City Hall or the Wasilla Police Department you may have noticed his work. Horsman’s the artist who created the city’s flag.

Then 14, Horsman won a $250 savings bond for entering the winning drawing in a city contest to design Wasilla’s new flag. His colorful work featuring a stylized moose eating in a green field by a lake with mountains and a sunset in the background won.

“I was pretty blown away,” said Horsman about winning the contest. “I entered as an eighth-grader. I thought it was pretty cool.”

Now he’s 15 and a freshman at Wasilla High School, and his talent for drawing — he uses mostly pencils, black-and-white and colored — has blossomed into a creative hobby Horsman said he doesn’t want to take too seriously. But he’s earned some notice in the community. He’s already been paid by a local company to create a logo and continues to enter drawing contests.

“I’m good at, like, forest animals and forest landscapes,” he said. “I like the forest, I guess. And I’m good at cartoons.”

That talent for cartoons helped him become a finalist for the Mat-Su Miners logo in a contest last year. While he didn’t win, but his cartoon moose featuring baseball gloves for antlers was good enough to put on a T-shirt.

Then there’s his grandfather, who will forever be known around the family table as “Old Grumpy.” That’s because a couple of years ago Horsman made his grandfather the central figure in a comic strip of the same name.

“I was kind of making fun of my grandpa and made up my own little comic strip named ‘Old Grumpy,’” he said. “He thought it was funny.”

He nailed the mannerisms of Karina Wentworth’s father, Micheal’s mom.

“Oh yeah, it’s him all right,” she said. “He’s one of those grumpy old men-type personalities — cynical but loving.”

While Horsman continues to draw and develop his talent, it’s only a hobby for now, he said. He hasn’t taken any formal art instruction and, like most 15-year-olds, has many ideas for his future.

“I want to probably take a year break from school, then go to college,” he said. “I don’t know the exact plan. I have a lot of careers in mind. I’d like to, after college, join the Air Force as an officer and stay in there until I retired, then teach history. I really like history.”

He also recently had an opportunity to show some of his work at a show at his church, Wasilla Assembly of God.

“I was going to do that,” he said, “but it just kind of slipped my mind, I guess.”

While Micheal just has fun with his drawing — his school books and notebooks are covered in doodles — his mother knew early on he has a special talent.

“I knew really early, when he was probably around 6 or 7,” he said. “That’s when he started drawing moose. It was a moose in a field of cattails with shadows. We were like, wow. And even before that, his pictures as a little kid weren’t the typical stick figures. His stick figures were incredible. They were comic strip (quality) at age 3 or 4, with stories behind them. And they’re dropping anvils on people with airplanes going over them. It was amazing.”

Horsman admits he probably spends more time lately playing video games than drawing, but has noticed there can be a commercial side to his art through contests and being paid to develop logos. It’s an opportunity his mother thinks would suit her son well.

“I think Micheal could maybe get into the marketing, because he’s got a talent and his skill is marketing,” she said. “He’s got these ideas that win him these contests.”

How does that sound to Horsman? “I don’t really know what marketing is.”

Horsman may not be familiar with marketing, but he captured the spirit of Wasilla in his flag design, said Mayor Verne Rupright.

“I love it, that’s why we adopted it,” he said. “It describes Wasilla where we live with the mountains and the moose, and it also shines eternal sun on us. It shows a sense of vibrancy. You look out there on bleak, winter days with that wind whipping, you have the American flag, the state flag and there’s ours.”

Does Horsman go out of his way to pass by city hall to see his flag flying?

“I don’t,” he said, “but I know my grandparents do.”

Contact Greg Johnson at greg.johnson@frontiersman.com or 352-2269.