I am very bad at being able to visualise finished work taking shape in mid air or empty space. I look at pieces of paper wondering if I could draw anything and doodle because nothing comes to mind but words. The few times I have sat down and sketched something like my dogs sleeping or a flower it takes forever and comes out wrong somewhere along the line:)
I have great respect for people who have developed those areas of the mind that can work in imagined three dimensions but quite obviously I was not made to be an architect and I have never learned draftsmanship.
But that doesn’t mean I cannot both appreciate skills in others and get a lot out of watching them work. Because I can follow their eyes, imagine my arm muscles skillfully manipulating materials, sense the concentration as their work. Many years ago as a child I was always scared of thinking myself into someone else’s shoes in case I suddenly became them; I had visions of being at a piano in the middle of a concert and not knowing what to do next. It was an amazing thing when I told my mother this and she told me she had had the same thoughts as a child. How alike are brains!
But that empathy, that bond of human experience, is the very foundation of my own work.