'The biggest day of my life'

With the art lesson over, the student soon began washing his instructor's oil paint brushes in the sink.

Six months later, Methodist University art professor Vilas Tonape is still astonished at the thought. His student was former President George W. Bush and the model was former first lady Laura Bush.

At the invitation of the 43rd U.S. president, Tonape spent the second Wednesday in March discussing and demonstrating paint techniques with Bush at his home in Dallas.

"I mean, the president washed my brushes. That's freaking weird," he said.

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It's late Monday afternoon on a nearly deserted campus of Methodist University. Tonape, who is the chair of the Methodist Art Department, had hoped to be finished moving from one office to another in the William F. Bethune Center for Visual Arts. On Tuesday, this 49-year-old native of Bombay, India, would be driving to the South Carolina coast to teach portrait painting during a four-day workshop presented by the Academy of Art League of Hilton Head.

Tonape has been on the Methodist staff since 2015, accepting the job as department chair after holding a similar position at Trinidad State Junior College in Trinidad, Colorado. At Methodist, he teaches painting and drawing, and occasionally design and art history.

His work has been shown on exhibit in India, Canada and the United States, including locally at Gallery 208 and Fayetteville Technical Community College.

Since he was in the sixth or seventh grade, Tonape knew he wanted to pursue art as a lifelong profession. In 1992, he graduated from the Sir J.J. School of Art in India, which he likened to "the Harvard of art colleges in India."

"I was never good at anything else except art,'' he said.

As a student, he said he could never understand the need to sit in a classroom and study history or try to understand biology. "But whenever it was art class," he said, "life made sense to me."

His passion? Portrait painting.

Tonape's style of painting has been described as classically-inspired contemporary realism, which he accepts. If you ask him to choose between teaching or painting, Tonape is quick to reply: "There is no line between them. When I am teaching, I feel like I'm creating art."

Without a doubt, President Bush ranks as his most famous student to date. One of Tonape's requirements had been the need for a live model, and Laura Bush agreed to sit for the painting, which added to his initial nervousness.

"The model I'm sitting with is the former first lady!" he said with incredulity.

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Tonape, perhaps better known on the Methodist campus as Professor T, called that day-long session with George W. Bush on March 14 "the biggest day of my life."

"He was a very good student,'' he said.

Tonape has since given numerous interviews as the man who taught painting to a president, including at least a half-dozen for publications in his native land. Though he said he has talked the subject to death, Tonape gladly shared this experience of a lifetime yet again, often embellishing his recollection with facial expressions and animated body language.

"I am nobody. I come from a lower middle class. I have no idea how that came about," he said, before delving into exactly how he wound up teaching portrait painting to the former president in the upstairs studio of Bush's Dallas residence.

Bush is no mere novice to traditional paint media, although for years he kept the hobby secret. He started painting in 2009, after leaving office, according to a story posted on the CNN website. "Portraits of Courage," a book of his paintings of military veterans, was published in 2017.

Through the years, Tonape has remained in contact with five former instructors who remain key influences on his life and artwork. Gurus, he calls them, and they include Jim Woodson, a professor emeritus at Texas Christian University, where Tonape earned a masters in fine arts in 1996.

Woodson told Tonape about Bush, whom he had been teaching off and on in Dallas. Bush enjoys painting portraits, Tonape said, and he wanted to learn more about painting from a live setting, with a model as opposed to working from a photograph.

Painting from real life is Tonape's specialty. After Woodson showed Bush some of his former student's work from YouTube videos, a series of phone calls ensued over the next few months.

"Just tell me when and where," Tonape told Woodson.

In February, Woodson and Tonape were discussing possible dates for the lesson when Bush came on the line. He told Tonape he was looking forward to meeting him.

After receiving Secret Service clearance, Tonape flew to Dallas on March 13. The following day, class was in session with the former president and first lady.

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Tonape said he was surprised after meeting George Bush. He had expected him to be a rube, like the popular Will Ferrell impression of him from "Saturday Night Live." Even Bush had a good sense of humor about the impression.

"I was like, no. He was sensitive, and he was so funny," he said. "He was harassing me. He was picking on me. He was very happy with the lesson."

And when the lesson was over, Bush cleaned the brushes.

"And you know, I asked him, 'Mr. President, would you please not do that?''' Tonape said. "He turned around, and you know what he said? 'Why?'

"He wanted to know why. I didn't have a why. So I said, 'That's fine, sir.'"

Six months later, after ample time to digest the experience, he regards the day as a big one for him professionally.

"Only one Indian in history — and when I say Indian, I mean from India — can ever say that he was invited by the (former) president of the United States to come and teach him. Only one Indian in history."

Staff writer Michael Futch can be reached at mfutch@fayobserver.com or 910-486-3529.

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