MINNEAPOLIS, MN (NBC) — Art is a talent that some people naturally have, and one young artist has a talent that extends beyond a natural gift.
Richfield’s class of 2016 is off and running, but one new graduate remains with her feet firmly planted.
“I call them fingers,” Minneapolis teenager Sonia Boyer said.
Why wouldn’t boyer call them fingers, when fingers are what she’s always made of her toes?
“They had an entire description about how musical she was and how loud she was and how assertive she was and at the very, very end, they said, oh by the way she doesn’t have arms,” Sonia’s adoptive parents said.
Jody Johnson and husband Mike Boyer found themselves captivated by the 15-month-old from India abandoned by her parents at birth.
“She just sort of would watch what people did and then figure out a way to do it herself,” Johnson said.
Years of reaching and stretching has allowed Sonia at the age of 18 to create art.
“She has such an awareness with her feet already that is hard to teach,” Richfield High School art teacher Jen Kotsmith Kraus said. “She has a gift for what she’s doing already.”
This is why Sonia is still here in the high school art room, more than a month after graduation, taking further instruction from Kotsmith Kraus.
Sonia, who has never backed away from a challenge, has decided to pursue a career in art.
Sonia has already been chosen as the grand prize winner of the Richfield teen art competition.
Some of Sonia’s original drawings will be part of the portfolio she’s creating for her application to the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.
The dexterity part already seems to be well in hand.
With high school behind her and her future ahead, Sonia Boyer has pointed herself in the only direction she knows—feet forward.