"Have you met the artist Stephanie Fuller?"
Twenty years ago I stopped correcting people when they called me by my other name. I realised Fuller was the name they knew me by and it was my first professional name in the UK and Australia.
So the international art world and all my friends in the UK, think of me as Stephanie Fuller.
It happened to me again last week, "Have you met Stephanie Fuller, she's an artist", as it has hundreds of times over the years. Most emails I send here in the UK to let people know I have moved back I have to say, you knew me as Stephanie Fuller.
Then of course, there is the screen play "Modern Art" by Laurence Fuller. Which is winning awards and getting attention in Screen and Reel Film Festivals around the world. In the script I am Stephanie Fuller, art student and wife of the art critic Peter Fuller.
One of my friends in media communications said to me before I left Australia, "If you have a business and you know the name is a problem, change it." The surname Burns has always been a problem because of it's association with fire.
In the 00's I embraced it and named my art gallery Stephanie Burns Fine Art. But I'm afraid not everyone has my sense of self deprecating wit. The Sydney Morning Herald even put me in their Column Eight, a satirical column about funny phrases or typos made in the public arena.
As the fires began to rage around Australia I took Burns off all my Instagram accounts, including my design account and website, which I changed to @aqayoga. I had an interim name for my art IG account which didn't really make any sense and was hard to explain to people.
Then the lightbulb moment happened. If everyone calls me Stephanie Fuller, I should refer to myself as Stephanie Fuller. Stop the confusion.
Stephanie Fuller x