The students in the classes in Nanning, the provincial
capital of China's southern Guangxi province, spend hours practising
brush strokes on a special paper, feeling with their fingers the different wet
and dry areas to guide them on their painting.
Eventually they get to the point where they can dip a brush,
similar to the ones used for Chinese calligraphy, into black ink and draw
things such as mountains or bamboo trees with long strokes. Short strokes can create
flowers or birds.
Zeng, 55, is a self-taught artist who has been conducting
classes for the blind for the past several decades. He says the classes fuel
his passion for art with a sense of satisfaction that comes from helping the
students — many of whom were orphans who came to him wanting something new and
fun to do.
Through the years he has experimented with different methods
of teaching Chinese painting to the blind students, since he sees standard
techniques as conformist and lacking life.
"The way I teach will be different for different
students, we should not use 'dead" techniques. Of course it would be
convenient, but it would stifle their creativity," Zeng said.
"So we have to adapt to different people, because
everyone is unique and they have their own intellect and we should respect
that. My way of teaching is to find out what they are good at and use artistic
concepts to help them grasp that skill."
It was a young blind orphan that changed Zeng's life and
introduced him to the potential of the blind. One day he saw a boy drawing a
circle and some dots on the sand, and asked him what he was doing.
The boy told him, in vivid detail, that he was drawing a red
worm with black eyes and feet — a response that shocked Zeng and, he said, made
him realize the boundless imagination and artistic potential of the blind.
