around me." Still, he acknowledged
that surgery also involves creativity.
"It involves manipulating images in
my
head and following a pathway of
imagery," Dr. Rootman said.
Going forward, Dr. Rootman
hopes to incorporate more emotion
into his painting and to have more
human
content, something he sees
as understandable give the context
Art Students League, the New York
Academy
of Figurative Art, and
the National Academy of Design,"
he said.
Here his work was influenced
by Harvey Dinnerstein, an artist
with a humanistic viewpoint, who
Dr. Rootman views as "a giant as a
teacher and a practitioner of art." He
also took an interpretive figurative
painting
course with San Francisco
artist David Tomb. "He would set
up a fairly complex scene, and we
would paint it in three hours from
beginning to end," Dr. Rootman
said. "That was a particularly
liberating experience for me because
I found that when I wasn't fussing,
which obviously a microsurgeon
would tend to do, I was able to let
go and it still came out making the
kind of statement that I wanted to
make."
A third mentor who stood
out during this period was Dan
Gheno, who taught at the National
Academy of Design. "His particular
approach was more about depicting
moments of psychological percep-
tion," Dr. Rootman said.
"When I came back from my
New York experience I bought a
studio because I wanted to work in
an environment that could be messy
and I could leave my work out all of
the time." Later, he purchased a
downtown apartment to serve this
purpose. This, he explained, was also
a place where his wife could spend
time.
Human focus
Over the years, Dr. Rootman has
done a number of exhibitions
with people as the primary focus. "I
would say there is some influence
because I know the body, and I have
also studied sculpting the body," he
said. "I do tend to pick topics that
have something to say about the
person."
Dr. Rootman views art as having
given him the opportunity to use his
mind more fully. "My work was very
specialized in oncology and orbital
disease and pathology," he said.
"I think what art gave me was the
opportunity to use the other side of
my brain to the exclusion of life
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ASCRS•ASOA SYMPOSIUM & CONGRESS, BOSTON 2014
of his 37 years in practice, where the
main focus has been on patients.
"People have asked me whether I
would
do things related to medicine
and I would," he said. EW
