Teh Writer

Artist Statement

Kristine Stout

Self Portrait

This portrait was created my senior year of high school, in 2012 and was graciously inducted into the permanent collection of my high school. It was our final project for an art class I was in where the teacher gave my class very little guidelines, allowing us to express ourselves in anyway we saw fit. My mind was blank for days until I finally started to throw a base coat of Mod Podge on an old windowpane to create a base texture. Patterns and words were thinly written in the Mod Podge, which added dimension to the overall picture. A thin layer of aqua colored paint was spread across the Mod Podge and then a quote stating “I am not familiar with good enough, If I was he’d be here and I would be beautiful”, was written in sharpie across the paint. This quote was about my father who walked out on our family, and as a child of divorce I have dealt with issues in taking blame on the whole situation. Another layer written in silver sharpie was written across this quote, the words written were different song lyrics and statements that have been dear to my heart. Such as a bible verse, Psalm 77, and lyrics to one of the first songs I learned to play on guitar, “Falling Slowly”. A final layer of writing was written across the silver sharpie in thin black sharpie. The words were written like a journal, summing up the hardships and feelings I have experienced and felt throughout my short 18 years. This layer was the most difficult for me to write because for the first time I was projecting my hardships and sufferings for the whole world to see, such as the death of my father. Although it is hard to read it lies there across the other layers as though it is the summary of my youth. The words contained all of the difficulties and the personal issues I have dealt with about myself. This project allowed me to freely express those, which, looking back, led to a great amount of heeling. I then took a picture of myself...