I have identified as an artist as long as I can remember. I was told that I was an artist as a child, and I accepted it as truth, because that is what I loved to do. In school, I was not just doodling in class. I was sketching in class, practicing drawing a wide range of subjects in the margins of my math assignments while sitting quietly, shyly hiding under the radar. I remember feeling competitive in our brief art classes. I wanted to be the best artist in the classroom. By Junior High I had read The Agony and the Ecstasy (biography about Michelangelo) so many times the…