George W. Bush's art teacher shares his talent with Montgomery County hospital

In an Abington Hospital hallway early this week, patient Charles Williams recounted the horror of having his blood-glucose level soar to 10 times normal. As he described the physical devastation, acclaimed portraitist Sedrick Huckaby listened and painstakingly sketched, in pen and ink, on a spiral-ring pad.

The 80-year-old retired postal worker from North Philadelphia told of losing nearly 70 pounds in less than a week, of his eyesight fading to black for four months, of battling back. But the two men also talked about Williams' life as a church deacon, a former boxer, a prison minister. After an hour, Huckaby had drawn a graceful, easygoing man who was far more than his disease.

In a hard-science environment defined by diagnosis and treatment, the Montgomery County hospital is turning to art to cultivate empathy among its staff and a keener ear for "hearing the patient's voice." Enter Huckaby -- incidentally, former President George W. Bush's current art teacher -- as a weeklong artist-in-residence,  roaming the corridors to capture what one doctor called the "humanness" of those there to be healed.

"Through looking at imagery, you can invite someone to feel something about a person they don't know," Huckaby said between sketching sessions. "There are thousands of words in an image," adding up to a story.

Huckaby has a story of his own.  A 41-year-old assistant professor at the University of Texas at Arlington, he has long focused on depicting ordinary people using thick layers of paint that rise from the canvas.  His work is in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. In 2008, he received a Guggenheim Fellowship, one of the most prestigious art grants in the nation.

In 2013, President Bush and his wife, Laura, visited a Dallas exhibit of a series of Huckaby lithographs titled "The 99%." Created during his residency at the Brandywine Workshop, a printmaking group in Center City Philadelphia, the lithographs featured portraits from Huckaby's old Highland Hills, Texas, neighborhood, where he interviewed residents, sketched them, and incorporated their words in the work.

The former president had begun dabbling in art, and one of his teachers, landscapist Jim Woodson, recommended that Bush contact Huckaby for lessons while Woodson traveled to the desert to paint. Huckaby has mentored him ever since.

It was Huckaby who encouraged Bush to shift gears and paint "people that nobody knows," in addition to the world leaders who had been the subject of many of his early portraits. Bush chose the wounded veterans he had come to know through friendships and charitable work. Last month, Crown Publishing Group released Portraits of Courage: A Commander in Chief's Tribute to America's Warriors, a collection of Bush's paintings of the vets. New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl called them "honestly observed and persuasively alive."

Bush is now painting with more varied technique and skill to create meaningful work, Huckaby said. "He's a lot looser and looks for poetic opportunities."

Huckaby was invited to Abington by Maureen Frye, director of the hospital's Center for Patient Safety and Health Care Quality. During a visit to Fort Worth last summer, she saw an exhibit of "The 99%" lithographs at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art.

"I was there for two hours and read every last one," Frye said. "I felt there was something we could learn about how to partner with patients and work with them in a collaborative way."

For his Abington residency, Huckaby sat in the hospital halls and lobbies from Sunday to Tuesday. During hour-long sessions, the artist drew his subjects while interviewing them about their ailments and everyday lives, even incorporating some of their words in the artwork.

He created nine drawings of 10 people, and displayed and discussed them Wednesday at the hospital's annual Louis Mohollen lecture.

"We want this to open up a dialogue about seeing a patient's humanness," said David Gary Smith, a general internist and director of graduate medical education at Abington Jefferson Health System. "That can transform a relationship."

During the lecture, videographer Mike Koehler showed clips he  recorded during the interviews, and vocalist Tanya Nolan Evans, a friend of Huckaby's, selected songs that she thought represented the subjects and sang them.

One was for Judy Archibald, an avid gardener and monarch butterfly enthusiast. When Huckaby interviewed her Monday, her husband, retired Lower Moreland Township School District Superintendent David Archibald, was at her side. She talked of her bout with a rare form of pneumonia and her six-month recovery, but also of traveling to Angangueo, Mexico, where monarchs overwinter.

For the Archibalds, Evans sang "What a Wonderful World," by Louis Armstrong.

Gil Bowen, 64, a disc jockey with a resonant voice and a diamond stud earring, told the artist about the gradual breathing problems that rendered him unable to walk more than a few steps. He eventually suffered a ruptured aorta and underwent surgery. When he talked about the care given him by his wife, Dorothy, and his doctor, Smith, he was overcome.

"I never had a caring relationship like this from another man," Bowen said, bowing his head.

For him, Evans sang a gospel piece by Hillsong United, "Healer."