Willpower

I am a teacher of fine art. One evening, after returning home from work, I heard a phone call.

- Hi! I heard the voice of a friend. - I am on rehabilitation now and I met a girl. Her name is Katerina. She doesn’t move well, but she draws very well. I will send her paintings to you. Maybe you will be interested to meet her?

A few days later I arrived at one of Moscow rehabilitation centers, went into the building and stopped in front of the stairs leading to the second floor. What I saw there struck me and scared. At the very top of the flight of stairs, a girl was standing and focusing on the floor near her feet. With one hand she held the handrail, and with the other hand rested on a cane. The hand in which there was a cane was shaking from side to side. The girl lifted her leg carefully and slowly, moving with difficulties, lowered her a step lower. Then she also moved slowly her second leg.

I couldn’t move a muscle. I did not understand whether she needed help or not. On the one hand, it seemed to me that she was about to lose her balance and tumble down the steps, on the other hand, it was clear that it was not her first time going down this staircase. And when I finally came to my senses and climbed the stairs, she, with a friendly smile, said in a low interrupted voice: “Hello! I’m Katya.” As it turned out, she went to physical education classes. At least three times a day she had to go down and climb this ladder. We agreed that I would wait for her upstairs.

Fifteen years ago, Katerina Kashnikova was an ordinary teenager. Like all her peers, she went to school. And in the evenings after school, she went to art classes. Drawing was her favorite hobby. But once her whole life changed dramatically. At eighteen, she was hit by a car. She received severe injuries and fell into a coma.

She spent nineteen days in intensive care unit without movement. It was not known whether she would survive or not. On the twentieth day after the accident, her eyelid moved. She began to recover gradually.

The first years of recovery, Katerina was haunted by the thought that now her life was meaningless. She practically could hardly move, speak, eat and drink. She completely depended on the care of doctors and loved ones. Katerina could not put up with the position of absolute helplessness. And then she decided that, despite her condition, she should benefit to others and be joyful. But how? She decided to share the beauty that she sees with others. Just imagine how difficult it was for her, for an almost completely immobilized person, to start painting again!

Only after three years spent in hospitals and rehabilitation centers, Katerina was able to move a little on her own. But now she could not even think in the way she did before. Her right hand was so weak that she could hardly move. Fingers barely bent halfway.

Attempts to draw with his left hand were also futile. Katerina, no matter how she tried, could not keep her left hand in one position, could not make a single exact movement. The hand did not simply obey. She was constantly shaking.
 
But she did not despair. She found a way to paint. Katerina learnt to take the brush with her right hand, and to hold the right hand with the brush with her strong left hand by the wrist. But, even with two hands, she could not draw a smooth line. Then she learnt to depict objects, applying individual coloured spots of paint, as the impressionists did. This manner was not an imitation of great artists at all. It was the only way Katerina managed to draw.

When we talked with Katerina, I asked where she got the plots of her paintings. Her source of inspiration was photos of landscapes and paintings by other artists. She draws something from real life, peeks some ideas from photos.

- I have a work with rainbow circles. I painted a teddy bear from real life, and spied circles in one picture. It seems that there is a combination of colours which is useful for the eyes, ... but I do not know for whom: for the audience or for me. - Katerina smiled.

“What about your eyes?” I asked.

- I'm sitting in front of you now, can you see me alone?
- Yes.
- And the two of you are sitting.

After an injury, she always sees double.

Katina’s paintings are the story of her tragedy and recovery. But the most amazing thing is that, looking at her paintings, we do not see the difficulties and suffering that Katerina got through. We do not notice what would betray the physical limitations of their author. We see a painting of a perfectly healthy person, a true artist who shares the beauty of what he saw with us, his fantasies and dreams. Each of her works expresses admiration for the world. Every petal, every twig is interesting and important for her. The sea in her paintings is fanned by the romance of distant travels. Looking at her winter landscapes with snow-covered roofs of houses and warm light pouring from the windows onto fluffy snowdrifts, the feeling of comfort fills you. They seem to carry you into childhood and give a feeling similar to the anxious expectation of the New Year’s Eve, as if a miracle was about to happen.
 
More than twelve years have passed since that terrible accident. But Katerina is still undergoing rehabilitation. It’s still hard for her to move. And the doctors who are supervising her are surprised at how quickly Katerina is recovering.

When I asked Katerina what she was dreaming about, she replied that she wanted to devote her life to art. But her most cherished dream, of course, is to get better and start a family.

Every time I recall our meeting on the stairs of the rehabilitation center, I am struck by the thought: after all, if I need to go down the stairs, I never think about how to do this. I just go and that’s it. And more often, I run downstairs, hurrying somewhere. For me it is as easy as talking, drinking, breathing.

I don’t think about how to keep my balance, how to rearrange my foot from one step to another. It’s also easy for me to hold a pencil or a brush when I draw. It costs me nothing to draw a line with a pencil.
I just draw.
 
For Katerina, going down the stairs is a challenge. Each step for her is a hard work, this is daily work on herself. She has to concentrate on every movement. She can't just draw a line. Drawing, she is forced each time to overcome the resistance of her own body. It’s hard for me to imagine what efforts are needed to paint a whole picture. And when I think about it, I remember people who, starting to draw and encountering the first difficulties, do not try to overcome them, but abandon this activity forever, complaining of a lack of talent or some special conditions. I want these people to know that the girl Katerina Kashnikova lives with them, who, contrary to everything that happened to her, takes a brush in her weakened naughty hands and draws.

She draws to make people feel joy. Katya’s case is an example of the fact that even almost completely immobilized person can learn to draw beautifully only through desire and work on himself. She shows us all how to live and enjoy life.