Born Without Arms : Art Student, 20, Finds Success With His Feet

Patrik Norstrom ushers visitors into his dormitory room with his own style.

Swinging a leg up to his door, he unlocks it with the key between his toes, and shoves the door open with the same foot. Norstrom, 20, also uses his feet to play Ping-Pong, drive, shoot arrows and to do what he hopes will make a living for him some day--paint.

Norstrom, a student at the Columbus College of Art and Design, was born without arms, a phenomenon physicians cannot explain.

The native of Boras, Sweden, refuses to be angry or complacent, or indulge in self-pity.

“I don’t have time for that. If I was bitter, I wouldn’t do all this stuff,” said the blond-haired, blue-eyed, fair-skinned artist, sitting in a dorm room decorated with his and his roommate’s work. Norstrom said he wanted to study art in this country and applied to three schools in the United States. Then a friend recommended the one here. He arrived Aug. 21.

Norstrom said his parents gave him artificial arms when he was 10 months old so he wouldn’t appear different.

“If people don’t see the handicap, they just say, ‘Hi, Patrik.’ Then they can’t treat me different when they realize it later, because they already know me,” he said. “I want people to treat me normal. Then I can be normal.

“If I tell them about my arms before they see my art, everybody will say I am a great artist. Some still have the attitude that they feel sorry for me. They say, ‘Look at this guy. He has to draw with his feet.’ I want them to be honest.”

Norstrom shows what gained him limited fame in Sweden by clutching a pile of photographs of his art with his toes and displaying them on the floor.

“I sold these pictures of girls to hair stylists at a hundred dollars apiece. It paid for the $900 trip here,” he said. “I know I can make money off my art.”

Norstrom has a degree in chemical textile engineering from a Swedish school, and said art used to be a way to relax.

“Engineering was very exciting, but now I want to do art,” he said.

Frank Laskowski, an associate professor who teaches Norstrom in two classes, said he has to kneel on the floor to see Norstrom’s work.

“I think of Pat as like everyone else, except his work is above average,” Laskowski said. “His dexterity and concentration level are higher than most of the others. I don’t view it as a handicap. I say, ‘Hey, the person’s here.’ ”

Norstrom wishes everyone had his teacher’s viewpoint.

“My parents usually encourage me to do everything. They treated me like a usual kid,” he said, “but it was very hard in the beginning to convince them I wanted to do archery.”

In two years he mastered the sport, as he has swimming and snow skiing. In August, he finished 13th in the world archery championships for the disabled in Sweden.

When he shoots arrows, he holds the bow with one foot, holds the arrow and draws and releases the string with the other. His mother, Ingegerd Norstrom, catches the bow.

Norstrom knows he has to accept assistance at times. A fellow art student earns a scholarship by helping him with impossible tasks.