When I was a kid, I spent many summer days in Cairo shuttling between my grandparents' apartment and the yarn store in a nearby mall. My grandma would send me and my cousins with a list of DMC floss she needed, and requests for needles and scissors and foundation fabric for the canvas work she diligently spent her afternoons creating.
Occasionally, she'd recruit me to help undo knots with my tiny fingers or instruct me to watch and learn. Once or twice, she gave me a canvas of my own, but I could never sit still long enough to develop either the skill or the love. Not back then, anyway.
My grandma never identified as an artist, but maybe she would have in a different time or place. Recently, I found my own way to hand embroidery. Turns out I'm pretty good! My work is done in her honor.