The Art of Painting: A Conversation with President Bush's Art Instructors

[Applause] thank you all thanks everybody thank you very much good evening and welcome to the art of painting a conversation with President Bush's art instructors by now some of you may have read George's book decision points so I thought you might be interested in its decision that George made after his presidency the decision on how to spend the afterlife if someone had said when George and I married that he would become president I might have said well maybe he was interested in politics and he was running for Congress in that early years of our marriage but if someone had said one day you'll be introducing George and talking about his paintings I would have said no way George had never shown any interest in art it all began with an iPad app called the pen ultimate George would sketch a little drawing on his iPad and email it to me or to the girls in his early experiments with art the wrench looked like this and on a trip to Arizona he sent his first self portrait painting even as the pastime is serious business it requires discipline which makes it well suited to George our more to the point George well suited to it George is disciplined and project oriented he gets his work done and he brought that dedication to painting like any skill painting takes practice and George works a few hours every day in his studio at the beginning he was a pet portrait painter he painted his parents dogs his sister's dogs and his brothers dogs and yes they really do look like that he painted our pets who didn't mind posing and whose feedback consisted mostly of wagging tails or purring Bob our cat was an especially willing subject assuming opposed and then promptly taking a nap but as much as George like painting pets he wanted to challenge himself he began painting humans even doing a few self-portraits every new painter even a former president finds himself asking the question what or whom should I paint and then there's this piece of advice given to many beginning artists paint what you know as George did they began to think about possible subjects he began to think about some of the people who he had found most fascinating when he met with them he didn't have a sketch pad in hand he wasn't thinking about character studies are light or shadow yet in the hours and days that they'd spent together he'd study them all from a unique vantage point each of these men and women was someone he knew as a fellow leader in painting the portraits of world leaders George had both the perspective of an artist and the perspective of a president I hope that you all saw this show the painting of the world leaders when it was here in 2014 the arts of leadership was the name of that show and these paintings are now part of the archives here at the bush center after painting portraits of world leaders George's instructor Cedric Huckabee who you'll hear from in a minute suggested that George paint the faces of people that people other people didn't know the faces of the men and women who'd served our country so George painted portraits of 98 wounded warriors men and women that he had met through the bush Institute's while your Open golf tournament and the W 100k by cried that we hosted our wrench the portraits along with the stories he wrote of the Warriors have been published in George's book portraits of courage Melissa Stockwell is one of the Warriors as a little girl Melissa loved our country and the American flag so she joined the ROTC program in college and she wore a uniform with a flag patch on her shoulder and now she proudly displays the American flag on her prosthetic prosthetic leg at 24 years old Melissa lost her leg when her convoy hit an AED she was the first female to lose a limb in the war on terror and she considers herself one of the lucky ones Melissa took up running swimming and cycling and she competed in to try as a triathlete for Team USA in the Summer Paralympics the Games in Rio de Janerio she took home the bronze medal and she also took up dancing with George after a tough day rat riding mountain bike trails while George was dancing with Melissa so was i with lieutenant colonel dan Gaede in 2004 dan was hit by an RPG in Iraq he recovered and continued his deployment two months later he was wounded by an AED and he spent a third of a year in the hospital and he's undergone undergone 40 surgeries in the years since he took up mountain biking tackling the tough trails and treacherous turns with strength and determination and whenever he reaches a steep hill all he needs is the bush push and he's back at the front of the pack they Incred 'it's his recovery to his wife to his daughters and to his desire to serve god he said these are my prime directions and the rest is all gravy in 2013 Dan was being promoted form a to Lieutenant Colonel George inviting him to his office so he could administer the ceremony himself as George pinned band's new insignia and saluted him he was overcome with pride and gratitude for Dan's service and the service of many Americans who risked their lives and too often gave their lives so that the messed the rest of us might never know terror again paint what you know George has taken these remarkable people whom he's known and has captured them on canvas he's painted them from his perspective as a painter who was once president and commander-in-chief recently George was looking through a book of paintings and he pointed out a painting by Thomas Moran saying how much he liked it and I said we had a painting by Thomas Moran hanging just outside the treaty room at the White House I used to look at this painting almost every day George passed it to nearly every night when he went into the treaty room to continue working after dinner but he'd never noticed it in the White House I had the chance to look at every piece of art but the issues for my husband were so great that he didn't have time to notice the beautiful paintings that hung on the walls his attention was elsewhere I'm grateful that it lasts George has a chance to develop his artistic eye and I'm thankful for the nation that allowed us to serve it for eight years it is as they on painting as a pastime Winston Churchill said happy are the painters for they shall not be lonely light and Colour peace and hope will keep them company to the end I'm happy to see my husband painting and I'm pleased to introduce the artist himself my husband George Bush [Applause] thank you thank you all welcome to this engage event probably one of the most improbable engage events in the history of mankind olara thank you for your introduction kenhorst president CEO of our operation here he's doing a fabulous job for us members of our border hickeys here along with Mary Margaret David and Carolyn Miller Karen Pro throw mark Langdale who brought his sister who's an art teacher Bridget and and we're proud to be partners with SMU undefeated football team Gail Turner is the first lady of SMU thank you for coming Gail before I introduce our panel I do want to call out a man I met at Camp David so you probably don't know but most of Camp David is staffed by United States Marines and Richard Casper was serving there after his tour at Camp David he volunteered to go to Iraq he suffered for ie D injuries in a month and came back with TBI traumatic brain injury unlike some vets he admitted he had a problem and wanted to do something about it notice he overcame the stigma of being a tough guy Marine admitting he had a problem and he took up art he went to the Chicago Art Institute which for those of you who aren't artists is really good and he has started a program called create events to help provide art therapy to the vets and so Richard were thrilled you're here with your fiance Ashley thank you for coming you might stand up so people can look at you so my life has changed dramatically in the post presidency one reason why is I'm no longer president second reason why is I'm a grandfather third reason why is because I have become an artist I'm proof that old dogs can learn new tricks I'm also proof that it's important to live life to the fullest and even though part of you says you can't do something it's important to try and thankfully I've had three mentors unlikely friends who are now dear friends people who have exhibited enormous patients who've got great skill and who have been an integral part of my life first is Gayle Norfleet Gayle is a fine painter she went to SMU and if you're interested in buying her paintings you can do so at Valley House the second painter is Jim Woodson accompanied by white Barbara I call him woody maybe the only guy in America who calls him woody Woodson was a longtime professor at TCU professor emeritus which like a title they give you when you retire and like me he's retired but he doesn't take retirement very well as my effect spends a lot of time and Abiquiu New Mexico painting where Georgia O'Keeffe painted the fabulous painter you too can buy his paintings at Valley House and finally Cedric Huckabee he's a teacher at University of Texas at Arlington here's the theme if you're an artist you got to be a teacher in order to make a living unless you go to Valley house to buy their paintings and at Valley House you'll also find Cedric Huckabee's paintings Cedric has got his family here and as as Laura mentioned was the inspiration behind a painting the faces of people nobody knows the vets and finally the moderator is a well-known face here in the Metroplex Meredith land who is an award-winning anchor for channel 5 and so if you don't mind please welcome tonight's panelists [Applause] good evening Thank You President Bush and mrs. Bush for having us this is going to be a great conversation we've already spoken president george w bush former president and fine artist but i spoke to him before the event tonight he looked at me and said who knew with a laugh of course and I think when the world found out that he was painting everyone was a little surprised I have to ask the panel were you surprised to hear well when it got out in the world I knew I had been with him when he painted his first painting so I knew that he was painting and moving in that direction right when you got the call you were the first person to hear that he wanted an instructor what was your first thought well my friend Pamela Nelson called me one Sunday afternoon and she said Gail I have a student for you and I said well Pamela I don't have a class going on right now I wouldn't have a place for this student and she said well this student wants private lessons and I said well who is the student and she said George Bush and I said I'm speechless and I said really and she said yeah really he wants to learn how to paint and she said would you be interested in helping him do that and I said well it's just too interesting to pass up and of course Gail was the first one to work with President Bush you were the second when you got the call to work with President Bush what was your thought I got a call from my gallery the valios gallery and they said I don't know whether you'd be interested in doing this but President Bush would like you to come over and critique his paintings and I thought how can I not do this I did you did yes and Cedric you know he seemed to be good with Gale and he seemed to be good with Jim but you just don't know what was your first impression of President Bush you went to the private residence in Preston Hollow well to the man cave well the first impression of him was really at the gallery he came to the gallery to see some of a show that I had up and you know he's very welcoming very open and really oh I think when he arrived he saw me before I saw him and so I heard him before I saw him you know I heard Cedric you know and there he was so full of life all right and then you went to his private residence for the first instruction right yes is what was your impression there you tell a funny story well you know he's a painter you know you know he had his shorts on and a t-shirt at all but maybe more than that he had a lot of paint on yet hands up his arms his fingernails I thought this is a painter you know that when you pulled up and yeah oh yeah and and there was that when when I first drove up you know it's just a habit to lock your doors when you get out and so I locked the doors of my car and I was going up and he came out and he said Cedric there's no need to lock your doors nobody's gonna take your car here and I looked around and I thought about you're good to go a lot of security well I want to dive in here Gail you were the first to to meet with him and we have some early some paintings the first one being the cube and that's the that's the first thing that you tell your students to paint well in all of my beginning painting classes I start with some exercises and the first object that we pay is a white wooden cube it sounds like it would be very simple but actually you have this problem of painting a 3-dimensional object you've got to figure out the right size of the cube you have to figure out where to put it on the canvas you have to figure out how to show light and dark and your problem is to make it look three-dimensional well that is a lot to do for a beginning student and but but all my students get through it and President Bush did too now I'm looking at the cube I haven't seen this training in a long time and I can tell that the shadow the perspective need still needs some work it's it's a cute it really is a cute did it yeah and then you've moved on to the watermelon oh yeah second object was a watermelon oh yeah there is the put there is the watermelon I think didn't know well I think the watermelon came out of the kitchen you know I think we found the watermelon in the kitchen and and placed it on the table and again the table perspective is a little off it sure it's got a complete composition you know I haven't seen this in a while and it's a good beginning it's a really good beginning I know you were really impressed with Marvin's dogs that's when you started to see some progress well yes let's look let's look at Marley yeah let's look at Marvin's dog I will never forget the night that I went to the Monday class we had a three-hour painting session every Monday well I got to their house rang the doorbell and mrs. Bush came to the door and she said there are the two ugliest dog stairs that you have ever seen well I couldn't wait to get up there to the to the studio to see them and I went up there and I said yeah you're right but this was a key painting it was an important painting in his development and anybody that could paint a dog particularly like the one on the left to get the shape and the spirit and the eyes and that much I don't know you all have got to agree it's just a wonderful spirited painting and I was really encouraged and I knew that he was going to be a good painter bye-bye this painting really isn't there an after oh yeah now this was this this was Marvin's dogs right his brothers dogs and and I think he sent the painting to Marvin well Marvin didn't like the dog well I told President Bush I said well if he doesn't like the painting if you can get it back I would love to have the painting well a few months later the painting came back I took it home with me and President Bush painted another version of Marvins dogs so we can see that one and compare it we go the and these and and I think Marvin liked these dogs better so anyway that's you know whatever before after Marvin's dogs a lot of us have seen the world leaders that President Bush has painted and you were there for those yes talk a little bit about how those came to be well I have a an artist friend of mine Roger winter who was my teacher at SMU that I thought quite a lot of and he paints from photographs and he has managed to make a very personal vision that way and he also was very articulate and I thought it would be worthwhile for President Bush and Roger winter to meet because one on one you're in such a narrow world you don't get to meet a lot of artists and get a lot of exposures so it's important to have other people come into the picture so I got them together and Roger saw his artwork his paintings his landscapes his still lives his portraits the whole range everything and he sat there and looked at them and he said you know I think you'd be good painting portraits why don't you paint some some of these people that you have known all over the world I mean you've known so many different people it might be good subject better for you so that's kind of how the whole story of the world leaders began and he started painting them and I think there was probably 50 or 60 paintings before it was all over and as you can see we're looking at Karzai in Putin angle America Merkel and King Abdullah of Saudi and his father and and there were so many more and it was very fun for me while I was helping him work on the noses and the ears and the eyes and and the some of the drawing involved he was telling me about who these people were so it was it was a it was a very interesting exchange for us to have it was a great project in a whole show of the the work developed from that I know there came a point where it had been two years you were working with President Bush and you said it's time for you to move on to another instructor yes we had worked together for two years and it's you know when you're developing as an artist it's very important to have different experiences and different teachers that can give you a new perspective and so I had heard that Jim Woodson was a wonderful teacher I had talked to him at Valley House and I knew his work and I thought it might be a fit so I introduced Jim to President Bush and that's how his second teacher came about and how did you feel when you got the call that we might instruct President Bush well I thought this is this is something I couldn't really pass up and he asked me at the first meeting if I would consent to be his teacher and I said well I'd be happy to do it as long as I'm here and and I think I was pretty impressed by just walking into the studio and seeing the things that he had been I've been done with gale and I thought you know this there's some real promise here and I didn't I didn't have any expectations before that and I think I think that you know there were certain things that I thought that I could be helpful we could talk about color primarily and I I wouldn't probably one of the things I used to do when I had when I was teaching was when my students were struggling with color I would give them a limited palette and I thought well this seems like it'd be a good idea just to limit his palette and so I gave this the group of colors that I thought he should set work with and so I came back the next week and he probably had made the worst painting that he had made and and the whole the whole time I missed something here about well I don't even remember what it was it was just but it was pretty muddy and and you know his color was much better before and I thought well somehow I missed something here so we spent a good portion of that of that class just mixing collar and he just he just understood it immediately well but I was trying to get him to do and he continues to be unbelievably adventurous using color by limiting your your palette like that you have to mix every color you know you can't use anything out of the tube like that so your color has to almost have it take on a kind of a personal quality and when a since I've worked with him any times he would be putting some combinations together I think that's not going to work but inevitably it does and he's very adventurous about trying trying those things we talked about simple kinds of things like you know contrasting warm colors and cool colors and you know just some simple things like that but he just seemed to understand that intuitively and I think the other thing we talked about a lot was that the fact that part of the content of any painting is paint itself and he was quite comfortable using what in the art world we call fat paint a putting paint on in a really really thick manner and that to me communicated kind of a self-assurance about paint handling that I thought was amazing for someone who was at that stage in his development it continues to be the surface of his paintings are remarkable I think and you've talked a lot about work ethic with President Bush and you were pretty blown away by how much he was how persistent he was about yeah I think Gale touched something a little bit but anytime I came there were three or four paintings to talk about and that's kind of a remarkable thing I've taught in the university for many years and sometimes you come in and there would be a class full of students whose work had not changed very much from the last time you saw them and and President Bush's case there would be always two or three or four new paintings to talk about so there was always things that you could talk about that that we're working really well in this this case and some that were maybe not working quite as well and so it always speeded up the whole the whole process of you know the way we would engage with you know with the paintings in that way I know you love the one of the caps do we have that one all those eggs there was a there was a painting that he did early on of of some friends ladies floating na on inner tubes that was not an especially good painting but the thing that he really nailed was were the the caps that these these ladies had on and I thought those are just beautifully painted and so I said why don't you do this the other thing we talked about is working in series and the I thought those paintings those those paintings were so good I said what would you do a series of pet hats and caps and so he started doing he did a number of paintings that were really quite extraordinary this happens to be one of my favorites because I think partly but they're beautifully rendered but I think partly because that there's that one missing thing and I think this was sort of a cue to me that there was a sort of a psychological aspect to the work that he made and I think that continues on and in the wounded warriors series they're just there's a psychological aspect of that that that we talked a little bit about but only after the fact you know it was completely his invention and then we went on to do I went on to do a series of beautiful cactus paintings and the cactus paintings had this wonderful surface and when you see these I don't know how these at least look back here but when you look at the surface of these paintings they are just rich and fat thick paint and that's that's a very difficult thing to accomplish in a painting you know most most young painters early painters are very very careful about that when you put it on when you put the paint on like that you have to be very confident about what you're doing and I think that that was communicated very much and we talked a little bit about you know god-given talent and artists who work and work and work at it much like he did god-given talent a little bit of both maybe a little bit of both but I think I think more than anything else you accomplish most of that through hard work paying attention to what you're doing making be making mistakes feeling comfortable making mistakes and being confident enough to obliterate something and come back and put it down again I think I think there's a certain amount of courage just in his approach to making a painting but I think it's that I think it's the perseverance the sort of stick-to-itiveness of kind of a singleness of vision that really made made this made us work not to say if there wasn't some god-given talent in there somewhere - I think the new word this out now is grit they say grit you know we was talking about into the back room there it was talent that was around one day but they say that grit when a person has grit it's more of a telltale of whether they'll have success or not and that's that's what he's got mm-hmm very persistent you had a funny story to tell right your wife one day we were down to two one car and so my wife Barbara dropped me off and went to do a little shopping and and we'd spent I don't know two or three hours just working on a painting and so I thought well this is coming along pretty well and President Bush said was his barber come back and I said yeah I think she's out there she said he said well bring her on in and so I called her and she came inside and he said well what do you think about this painting and she looked at it and she said well you know I think it needs a little work up there and I thought after me three hours and she's now she's coming in and being a being a critic and and so she he said he said yeah I think you're right and so he just took a brush if he just very quickly scrubbed that out and put something else in but but really quickly I mean he looked really quickly and she said she said you know you're really brave with his paint handling and he said no I'm just cocky [Laughter] you spend a lot of time in New Mexico and so there was a point at which where where you had to head out to New Mexico and so you sort of passed President Bush on to Cedric right exactly I think that we I would be half the year in New Mexico and and I'm not sure exactly how the connection was made with with Cedric but was a terrific terrific connection because they produced some of the most remarkable things that you've all seen in the gallery and that's where I want to get to now is in one of your first meetings you talked about you mentioned painting unknown people he had painted the world leaders you'd seen all that but what did you say to him I think he described it earlier we were sitting at the table and and I had known that about his series of world leaders and I asked him about painting the people that nobody knows and I it was really an open kind of statement you know I didn't have any particular people sitting in or out but the moment I said it then he said the veterans or something to that that a statement somewhat like that you know he immediately thought he would do the the veterans and from that point forward I mean he started immediately with getting information and preparing to do the project he said he picked up the phone immediately this is happening yeah yeah so that's the way that's the way it happened and so you said go for it right and would you be with him when he started to paint some of these veterans helping to instruct him along or how did it go well you know he was so excited of this as a subject and he knew immediately that this is what he wanted to do you can tell it was one of those things where he had been painting you know it painted landscapes and he had painted some of the steel lives he painted the world leaders earlier but you could tell that this was a situation where the content which is in these case in this case the the veteran that he were painting he was equally passionate about his relationship with them and what he wanted to do with that work dealing with them as a subject as he was a passionate about painting and when content and form come together equally in in something as an artist you have you have a real dynamic thing and and he took that and he was off to the races you know I had to do what I can because you know you couldn't stop him from from from from doing it you know the best thing you can do is just see where you could help out would you talk about each veteran would he tell you about their lives and their stories along the way he does he knows all about he was telling us about him in the back before you know we came out he knows every last one of them he knows their story and that's what that's why I think this project was such a success it was really the marriage of an artistic practice that he had come to love and the veterans a people that he had come to care about so much is he a portrait artist so I think he likes to do a lot of different types of paintings landscapes still lifes dogs but I think he likes portraits maybe more than anything I think he leans toward portraiture and he has a special gravitation torpor Treacher gale you mentioned when you came to the exhibit that you were overwhelmed you had tears in your eyes to see all the veterans that President Bush had painted tell us about that moment and why that was so powerful for you well the first time I saw all of the portraits of the veterans was in President Bush's studio and there were a lot of them and they were filled and they went all the way around the room and these faces were just everywhere in that space it really was overwhelming and I got the picture very quickly of what he had been going through and what he had been doing you know to accomplish all that this was about probably about a year's worth of work and they were it was about almost complete but when I can't when when the exhibit went up I came and saw it the night that had opened and I walked in and it was you know all beautifully hung and and I looked at it and it really was quite touching you know the just the the enormity of these men and women that had given so much and and of course I was personally involved in it because I knew what it took of five years of work to be able to do that to get from the cube all the way to that I mean it was really impressive but you can see his heart in his spirit in those portraits oh yeah immediately course yeah yeah and you know one of the things as a teacher that you work on trying to get a student at the end and this is usually at the end of their development is personal vision and some of them never get there but within this amount of time you would have to say that this portraits of courage is definitely personal vision and you and you said the same thing Cedric about it being personal for him almost therapeutic you think in in painting I think it was it was definitely as a subject it was what it was what his passion was like and so you know if they're punic that you know that might fit but I think there was another word that might fit more particular and I can't I can't think of what that is right now but right the therapeutic is not the word I'm thinking about it you know he he did the paintings it this was his I don't want to say his muse but the the he had he already had involvement he already had he was already working at doing things for the veterans and and then you know there's the personal thing when he's in that space just like Gail was saying you so the the the former commander in chief has become a painter and you're you're in the room and suddenly you look you're totally surrounded by all of these soldiers you know there was definitely something special there what was he like to work with Cedric did you guys have a good time did he imitate anyone or make you laugh yeah he's just himself you know he's in it there and he he works vigorously he'll definitely you know he'll never he's he talks to you you know and and but he's he's very he's very focused on on the paintings and so I don't know a lot of people who work around him call him Curious George cuz he asked a lot of questions did he ask you a lot of questions about your life and your beliefs and your art well obviously he he just brings his whole personality with him and so anybody who knows him you know he's a very lively person he's he's funny he's so his whole personality is there and on the one side well I'm kind of mapping out his brain on the one side of his brain he's painting but on the other side of you know he hadn't lost fact he he hadn't lost track of the fact of you know everything else is going on in life and so he's able to kind of do all those things at once which is which is an interesting kind of thing you know I found that very interesting about him as a person you know you rides bicycles on the one hand and then he paints on another hand and then he's writing a book you know so there's a lot of stuff going on up there [Laughter] like going on like going on what was he like to work with Jim I think we say one other thing about after my absence coming back I'm walking into the studio with full of these paintings of the wounded warriors I came there were a lot of them there already and he began to tell me about each of their stories look at each painting and and he would tell me their stories and I found it I found it very touching and you know that he knew he knew so much about what they had gone through and what they had done to survive and that sort of thing I just have found it I look forward to our sessions together I think we have fun you know in the beginning you said our politics might be a little different our politics are very different although I must say their closer together right now then they this is probably not gonna work to talk about politics here but but we have managed to talk about politics a bit and he's always been very respectful of my position and he did he didn't push his position too hard on me so I think I think that part is kind of was kind of a nice nice little piece of it too we might be having lunch together or something when some of those things will come up and it's it's not part of what I thought our conversation would be about but well Gail will be honest and here and say at first you said I'm worried about what my friends might think cuz your politics were a little different I was really worried he did say one day that that arts artists were probably not his base that's true no I was a little worried but it all worked out we had actually a very nice time we didn't talk about politics all that much it was in the beginning and you know we really were working hard and so the the problem at hand was to make paintings one a thing that I remember you know when you're working with just one person it's a different kind of teaching experience like if you're in a classroom you move from student to student and you're not just on top of the students all the time and I remember asking him how are you gonna feel about me just standing back there and he turned to me and he said I'm used to scrutiny [Laughter] [Applause] not his first rodeo you had a funny story to tell didn't you weren't you we were to surprise him yeah with my funny story I'm used to scrutiny well I have a lot of funny stories but wish we had all night yes oh this is a funny story when during the first year that we were working together I got a letter from a man in Tennessee who was a nude model and he listed all of his qualifications and was asking if he could come to Dallas and pose for our classes and I never wrote that President Bush I can't remember did I tell you that story and the time is fast yeah seem to be other things more important surely yeah what do you see in his future where do you see him moving in an arts at what direction is he going into you now well you always paint wounded vets where do you see him headed I would like to see him paint a portrait of Laura Bush [Applause] we did here he tried that once and I think that he should paint a portrait of his parents and I think they would be very important personally and historically and I and I think the portraiture is very important and I think that he will continue that he has some wonderful portraits of his granddaughter when she was a baby that I don't know if anybody has ever seen but I thought they were really really good and there are all sorts of good paintings that he's done have you seen the one of mrs. Bush all right no one has seen it not well-received I've seen have you seen it well you know you never liked a portrait of yourself I thought it was pretty good yeah well it's hidden somewhere I guess yeah where do you see his art moving you know I'm not sure I think I've probably more helpful to him with with landscapes because that's part of what I do one of the last paintings that we talked about was he said he wanted to paint a tree and he had a number of reasons about what white what trees could mean and the day that I came over he was pretty far along and in that painting but something this is something I really admired about that's that particular session and I think I don't think it was necessarily his his best painting but he said what should I do with this painting and I said I think you should scrape it off and I thought I said no I said a little bit differently that I said please just take this with a grain of salt and but I think would be good if you were to scrape it off and so he he began to scrape this painting off and as he's took things away if they're left a kind of a ghost image of what was there before and what he picked up on with that ghost image and what he did to that to make that painting come alive was just sort of a miraculous so I don't know I don't think I think it's difficult to make a painting of a tree just like it's difficult to make a painting of a baby or a painting of your wife perhaps but I think I think I'd still like to see him do some some some more of those landscapes he did some beautiful landscape paintings of of water lilies on the ranch as well I don't think I mentioned those before but they were extraordinary Tedric well I think he is definitely gonna continue doing these projects all bodies of work seems to really get into a certain focus on a certain subject and really can dig into that in and I see him continuing to do that and as he does I think he is really blazing a uncharted trail for presidents or former presidents because I had a critic tell me once and he didn't know I I taught I worked with President Bush but I don't know how we got in a discussion about his paintings but he talked about Winston Churchill and he said you know he thought Winston Churchill was a better painter he said but I think President Bush is a better artist than Winston Churchill and I think that he's gonna he's gonna blaze a trail because as an artist you know we've never had a president to be an artist and that's what he's doing I want to mention that all proceeds from this book go to help veterans through the bush Center which is pretty remarkable and now we're going to take some questions from the audience Susan Nolan says do you need an innate ability to paint or can you become an artist through instruction you want to take this skill I really think that if you paint about 150 paintings you'll make progress and if you can get through it I think that means a lot yep do you agree you know we were talking earlier about grit more important than talent is just the tenacity that you really want to do it that you really desire to do it and if you go after it you'll the work will teach you how to do it the grit yes cigarette you touched on another thing I think and a touchstone a little bit while I was talking about seeing the ghost image and the painting subsequent paintings after that he began to see that the process of making a painting was important because he did a number of paintings in which he would paint for a while he would scrape it off and start to repaint again and I think that you know at least for me and I think I speak for the rest of people in the panel is I think that that one can make something that one doesn't know how to make and by trusting the process and finding your way out long and I think that you know I think when I what I'm the most successful as a painter myself is when I'm surprised at the end because I really didn't know how to do that and if I did know how to do it then I think that whatever I made would have looked looked preconceived and I think that's never been the case with President Bush I think his paintings are always surprising at the end and we sort of this sort of piggybacks Bob Hudgens says I'm 78 years old am I too old to learn to paint go for it never never never never too old you bring a lot of experience to it probably through Joyce Mitchell what is President Bush working on right now and I think you know actually I don't really know I'm gonna meet with him soon I hope to find out a little bit more about about what he's doing well I asked him and it's trees right on the ranch various trees that's the latest you heard it here first what did you find most challenging as an instructor for President Bush and what was most fun most challenging and most fun I think it was uh you know when I started working with President Bush he had learned on the gale and he had learned some with Jim and I just had to figure out what to teach him you know I didn't know where to start so I just thought I'm gonna sit and watch and I'll see where I can advise or contribute and you know it's it's just fun really watching him go at it because he's he's very brave and he doesn't you know every time I come into the studio it's not like what what you would expect is there he worked more on the painting that he was working on when you left but what you don't expect is you come in and not only did he work more on a painting that you saw when you left but there's two or three other ones in their own and so that's always sort of fun to look at and how about you go it was challenging and most fun moments the most challenging for me was trying to bring the art world to the studio like I brought books like there was a Lucian Freud retrospect retrospective in Fort Worth that was a really important show and they had a wonderful catalog and I remember I was so glad to have the catalog because he's a he's a british portrait artist so it applied and we were able to look at it a lot and talk about how he worked with paint and his color sense and all the variety of colors and we sat and pored over those paintings and looked at them and talk about them we talked about Fairfield Porter and Hockney and other artists that were doing figurative work so that was my challenge because to go to museums and go to galleries there would always be a crowd of people around him and you couldn't just stand in front of a painting and just have a nice quiet little talk about it you know so so I think that's a challenge for private lessons you know that's harder because you're not in a university situation with lots of classrooms and lots of students it became more and more important for me to talk about art history and then he took a class online with the Museum of Modern Art and it was about painting from the Impressionists - I think 1945 and it and it was a really good thing to do that he could do it at home and not have to go off somewhere and take the course those kinds of things you know were a challenge for me trying to bring as much exposure to the situation and a little fun - right yeah always yeah we always had fun yeah okay well I think we're out of time unfortunately thank you for having us and thank you for coming [Applause] thank you all for being here and for serving the the country as well a former president has a very very important and unique voice and you helped this former president find another voice through art so thank you very much for your contribution we have copies of the book outside reminding that the proceeds of those the Bush's have generously committed to our military service work here at the bush center and I would also say if you didn't get a chance to see the exhibit due to popular demand we've extended the run until October 17th so you have more time to come back now that you've heard the backstory and to bring your friends a couple quick announcements the communities foundation of Texas on September 14th is sponsoring North Texas giving day it actually starts tomorrow you can do advance work to help your favorite charity and if those favorite charity happens to be the work at the bush center that's fine too our upcoming events are engage events in and thanks to our friends at Northern Trust we're bringing Condoleezza Rice here on October 10th and both Jenna and Barbara Bush are going to talk about their new book on November 5th if you don't have tickets for those those are sold out however you can watch it on through our website and our Facebook our Facebook page it'll be live streamed and then obviously for those who are here you all know about the tickets are now hard they are to get but if you are members of the bush center you get advance notice for all of our events so please make sure that that you continue your membership and tell your friends you will see one cactus painting to the right as you exit thank you all for being here and I look forward to welcoming welcoming you again at a future event thank you all [Applause] [Music]

Channel: TheBushCenter

Views: 170,166

Keywords: george w. bush, portraits of courage, george w. bush presidential center, george w. bush institute

Id: Z-Mr4x-rqMU

Length: 66min 36sec (3996 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 07 2017