1

One of the first things to know about myself is that I have taken to shortening my name to Ani from Stephanie. I've always thought of myself as Annie, and gave myself permission to shorten my name to my liking! But if you met me anywhere and we introduced ourselves, I still have moments where I reflexively call myself Stephanie!

2

I am a self-taught artist. My first serious efforts at learning how to draw began on October 29, 2020, thanks to Domestika's excellent little lessons. Painting followed in December of 2022.  

My initial goal was to create images and maybe even stories for my grandchildren. I learned that art truly is a skill!

Art has been a wonderfully freeing experience. It has primarily transformed how I see myself. It has taught me to forgive mistakes and to let go of trying to make everything perfect. Art also taught me about an undiagnosed learning disability that has affected me my entire life. No one is interested in diagnosing my LD now, except myself. I now think that every single human walking this earth is on the neurodiversity spectrum. I always thought there was something wrong with me, but now I know my brain works differently.

3

For most of my life, I wrote. I wrote bad poetry, short fiction stories. And then as an adult with the explosion of online news sites, I began freelancing writing non-fiction, mainly news stories. This turned into a five-year career of writing news stories. Just before how we get our daily news changed away from newspapers, I ended up working for two different Indigenous newspapers. When the second newspaper collapsed financially (a sign of the times), I became just another of many former news writers.  

I am still writing. At the moment I am pursuing private interests in writing. That said, I feel as successful at writing than I do with setting up my new website. Which is to say, not feeling very competent, although there are small victories along the way.

4

My life is now dedicated to being creative and exploring where this takes me.  

5

I am a member of IWS Canada, having joined in February of 2025. I won my first honorable mention from IWS in the summer of 2025 for my portrait of one of my best friends, my cat Minerva.