Always Wanted to Be an Artist, I Just Didn’t Know the Words

By Aneesah Davids | 10 February 2025

I always wanted to be an artist.

I just didn’t have the language for it.

 

I was always drawn to visuals, images that expressed how I felt, how I saw the world, who I was inside.

 

I could recognise myself in images long before I could ever explain myself in words. I’ve never been good at articulating these things verbally. Art felt like a translation.

 

When I could finally afford it, I took art lessons.

And I was good at it. Really good.

I loved it. It quickly became an obsession.

 

Art took up space in my mind in the best way. It felt like something had finally clicked.

 

Then I experienced a breakdown that forced me to pause my life. It happened at a time when I was torn between who I was expected to be and who I actually was.

 

It took three years to get through it.

Recovery was slow. After years, I eventually picked up a paintbrush again, because something inside me needed to say something, even if I didn’t know what that something was.

 

It was difficult.

 

Not because I had forgotten how to paint, but because of the story I was telling myself.

 

I told myself I wasn’t as good as I used to be.

That I was a different person now.

That I had a disability.

That I wasn’t as smart, or as sharp, or as attractive as before.

 

But underneath all of that noise, something still needed to be expressed.

 

Art became the place where I could put the things I didn’t have words for. Every mark I made released something: grief, fear, frustration.

 

I stopped trying to make “good” art. I stopped trying to prove anything.

 

That’s where my art shifted. It became more honest. Less about being impressive, and more about being real..

 

And eventually, that’s why I started creating art therapy–inspired T-shirts.