I recall one day I looked out my second-floor Studio window and saw Henry Gentry walking across Chestnut Street, coming toward the Cloister after he had finished an afternoon drawing session with his young students.
Along with being an art teacher, Henry was also an ordained Baptist minister and a mental health therapist. The combination made him a good Samaritan on the many paths he followed.
It was summer and Henry had become the Pied Piper of drawing pads and pencils with the Phoenix Hill neighborhood children who sat with him in the front yard of the little red brick cottage. He was teaching them to see with an artist’s eye, following the exercises set forth by Betty Edwards in her book, “Drawing On The Right Side of the Brain”.
When one of his young students produced a drawing that looked like it had been done by Michelangelo, Henry contacted the author to tell her how excited and encouraged we were that a child could have done such skillful work.
A talented sketch artist, Henry displayed his sign at art festivals, “See Yourself As Others See You”. Customers were amused at seeing his drawing on the sign of a person with a large head and small body performing an activity that changed from show to show. His promotional sketch covered sports with a player tossing a football or dunking a basketball a mother pushing a carriage, and a dad working on a car. When someone suggested a theme for their personalized drawing, Henry would sketch it. His booth was always a popular spot at festivals.
In the red brick cottage that we called The Phoenix Hill Academy, Henry was instrumental in helping construct tables for the watercolor classes. The rest of us used easels for our students, but the watercolor students needed a flat surface to work on.
We had the grand idea of mounting the tables to the wall on hinges so that when not in use they could be folded up against the wall like a Murphy bed. Being a strong, young man, Henry was convinced to do the job and was hailed as a hero by the watercolorists.