One day, all those years spent making things purely to please other people took their toll.
The artist {who thought she wasn’t an artist} began to experience numbness in her right hand.
The artist {who thought she wasn’t an artist} had spent thousands of hours on her computer designing handsome corporate identities and websites for other people. The artist {who thought she wasn’t an artist} had spent many hundreds of days with pliers in her hand, making attractive jewellery for other people to wear. But all the while, she secretly longed to be an artist. She dreamed of being an artist. She had lots of pastels and paints and brushes and pads. But, whenever she tried to make art, she hated what she created. This made her hate herself and feel even less like an artist. And so she told herself she wasn’t an artist. And that really she didn’t make art. Still she went to bed at night dreaming of being an artist, and feeling so sad that another day had gone by without her making any art. One day she woke up and her whole right arm and hand were completely numb. She couldn’t feel a thing. Soon the numbness gave way to intense pain in her shoulder and right down her arm. And so it was that the artist {who thought she wasn’t an artist}, realised that the time had come. She couldn’t carry on burning herself out for other people. She needed to rebuild her life in a different shape. 
A short while later, by way of recuperation, the artist {who thought she wasn’t an artist} decided to go to visit her family and bored, one afternoon, she drifted into a book shop.
Waiting for her on the shelf, she found a book called The Artist’s Way. The title called to her. How could it not? For was she not an artist who had lost her way? And so she bought the book and began to work with the lessons. 
A short while later still, it was the turn of her beloved to go on a trip.
When he returned, he brought a gift for the artist {who thought she wasn’t an artist}. It was a thick, handsome, gloriously empty, leather book. The book was quite the most beautiful gift anyone had ever given her. As soon as she saw it, the artist {who thought she wasn’t an artist} knew what she wanted to do with it. She wanted to fill it with collage. So the artist {who thought she wasn’t an artist} began to dig through her drawers and cupboards looking for materials to use to fill her handsome book with collages. And as she dug, to her surprise she began to discover many, many small artworks. Years of art she made when she believed she ’wasn’t making any’:
Hundreds of sheets of paper done over years, sometimes painstakingly, sometimes frantically, always put away without acknowledgement. The artist {who thought she wasn’t an artist} began to fill the beautiful leather journal with collages made from all the artworks she made when she wasn’t making any. Day by day, week by week, the book got fatter and fatter as the pages filled. She loved the growing fatness of that book. It felt pregnant with creative ideas. It sang to her that all those years hadn’t been barren of art after all. And the more she filled the pages, the more she was forced to admit that she was an artist. That she’d always been an artist. That ‘not being an artist’ was just not an option. That it didn’t matter how much she hated or hid her work, she’d still be an artist. Because that’s who she was. And so the the artist who realised she was an artist began the slow journey of piecing together her artistic identity, of developing her practice, and honing her creative voice. And gradually, sometimes painfully, often joyfully, the artist came to embody her destiny and make her art. And never again did she say to herself that she wasn’t an artist. The artist {who thought she wasn’t an artist} is me.
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