DAMASCUS, Feb. 21 (Xinhua) -- Dua al-Bustati, 28, was born without arms. However, it is probably a blessing for her to destroy the limits and express her soul through drawing various paintings with her feet.
With a constant smile on her face, al-Bustati is proud of herself with the paintings she draws.
She said her talent started when her sister used to bring her photos and ask her to paint them. She started by painting cartoon characters when she was a little girl.
But painting is not the only thing she can do with her feet.
In fact, the determined woman does almost everything on her own, as she can drink coffee and use a cellphone and even do some cooking with her feet.
The secret behind her determination is her positive thinking as she said positiveness in life is what matters and she is blessed enough to have the positiveness to make her excel in life.
"The positive thinking is what enabled me to enter and graduate from the Fine Art College and I was called an artist and I made several exhibitions," she said.
During a visit of Xinhua reporters in Damascus to al-Bustati's house, she said difficulties are part of her life.
"I was born without arms and faced many difficulties and I did everything with my legs," she said.
"I attended the school for people with special needs so it was fine. But in the university, the situation was so difficult as there was no place designed for me, so I used to sit on the ground to draw. I overcame this situation with my strong will," she added.
Throughout her life, she did not like the way people would look at her as a girl without arms and this feeling pushed her to do her best in school and in university to compete with the normal people.
Her graduation project was paintings of people with tied hands. It was a message to the people that gives her strange looks on the street.
The paintings aim to tell a message that the people who look at me with sympathy cannot live a day with their hands tied, she said.
She said the arms are no longer important for her as she can do anything with her legs.
"For me, the hands are no longer important but for sure they are important for other people and that is my message to the world from my graduation project," she told Xinhua.
In her house in the suburb of Sehnaya, some of the paintings al-Bustati drew are hanged on the walls or laid down on the ground.
She said she participated in several exhibitions in the country as she has drawn around 100 paintings so far.
"The people's reaction was so positive and they liked my drawings even before they knew my situation. After they knew me they were so surprised that the paintings were drawn by feet not hands," she said.
She said her dream is to be famous around the world.
Al-Bustati said her paintings largely focus on the old Damascus's lanes and nature, noting that people sense her inner situation through the paintings in the exhibitions.
"All my paintings represent me as each of them mirrors my spirit in different situations," she said.
