Summer 2004

Different Strokes

Paintbrushes, colors and creativity long have been passionate pursuits of Felicia Hinant. Now she’s learning the art of medicine.

Felicia Hinant had her first inkling she had arrived as an artist when several of her paintings of saints on wood, called Santos, were displayed in galleries and sold throughout New Mexico. She suspected it so when she learned someone was copycatting her style in that state. But she was entirely convinced she had arrived and her work appreciated when something else happened.

“I was flattered when I heard that a painting I did of San José had been stolen from a home in New Mexico. Art theft is perhaps the ultimate compliment,” says Hinant, who recently began her third year as an IUSM student.

Art and medicine have been long-time pursuits for Hinant, who grew up in Washington, D.C. She spent countless hours in art galleries, including the National Gallery of Art. She often visited the district’s many memorials and historic sites and did crayon drawings. In the fourth grade, she painted the blossoming cherry trees and the work was displayed in an exhibit in the U.S. Senate office building.

Hinant has never been far away from art at any stage in her life, though it has been more constant and serious the last ten years, which she credits to the encouragement given by her long-time friend, Cecilia Daniels. The idea of becoming a doctor took root when she was a 13-year-old high school biology student in Indianapolis, but she quickly opted for more hard-core sciences, Hinant recalls.

“We were dissecting fetal pigs and some of the boys in class chased me around the room with guts and threw them on me,” she says. “That’s when I decided physics and chemistry were better classes to take.”

She later went on to earn a degree in chemistry and went into that profession for a few years. Years later, she earned a master’s in mechanical engineering and worked for a defense contractor. That’s when she started thinking about becoming a doctor again – going from a world of fighter jets and bomb racks to taking the Hippocratic oath. She was accepted into IUSM in 2000.

“Art and medicine both involve seeing relationships in new and different ways,” she explains. “Every painting is different and every patient is different. Painting and sketching use a part of the brain that has no sense of time and no language ability. There’s great freedom there because mood and emotion are legitimate feelings. In contrast, medicine is highly dependent on language and time can be crucial. The mood and the emotions of a physician should not cloud judgment.”

Hinant describes her style as not really a style at all, that she often does not start out with a particular subject in mind. She takes out her pencil and begins to draw on a blank piece of white paper. From there, the work takes a life of its own and may evolve into serpents, ladybugs, fish, ships riding waves, musical notes, flowing streams, medical school experiences and relationships. Most of her paintings are done with acrylics on watercolor paper, and she uses India ink for outlining. The colors she chooses are very bright and vibrant and, in some ways, much like stained-glass windows.

“I like to sketch flowers and human faces,” says Hinant, the mother of two daughters, the oldest who just completed her sophomore year at IU’s Herron School of Art.

“I once tried sketching horses, but they didn’t cooperate,” she continues. “It wasn’t long before these huge, curious animals wanted to see what I was doing. My sketchpad was getting nudged by their heads and it was a bit intimidating.”

The medical world has taken note of the budding physician’s artistic talents. The Journal of the American Medical Association included Hinant’s paintings in two of its issues ( Feb. 13, 2002, and May 5, 2004). The latter painting is called “First Year,” and illustrates the ups-and-downs of a medical student’s rookie year. The other painting now hangs near the entrance of Riley Hospital for Children. And if you haven’t guessed by now, the cover of this issue of IU Medicine magazine is one of her works, “Serpents in Love.”