We were fortunate enough in our city of Brisbane to have Stephen Wiltshire come and do a fly over and drawing of our fair city. I took my daughter in so we could go and have a look at him as he was doing it. He was quite amazing.
I was very interested in the way he was holding his pencil while we watched him. It is an unusual grip, but it is very similar to the way my son holds his pencil. It's made me think about it a lot over the last few days. We have put a lot of effort into changing our sons pencil grip so that it is more 'normal'. It has all been by encouragement and exercises, not force. But I've begun to wonder if this attitude of "everyone must hold a pencil just so" will become how we view forcing people to use only their right hand in times past. Are we, by making our son conform to the norm, making it to unnatural for him to write, and is this why he has so much trouble at it? Would we have been better off just letting him grip it in a way that felt natural for him? I don't know what the right answer to this is, and I don't think we could reverse the changes, but it's an interesting point to ponder.
I loved Stephens work, and plan on purchasing a print of this drawing when it becomes available. I was amazed at how well he was able to concentrate and work with so many people watching. He would pause every few minutes and look around. At first I thought he was looking at the crowd. Then I wondered if he was seeing the city in his head, and visualising what it looked like before putting it on paper. His attention to detail was quite amazing. I have absolutely no idea how he does it!
I felt very privileged to view him working.
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