Adventure Self Portraits

My perceived vanity of this page frightens me. Also looking at this many pictures of myself at one time is exhausting. I have worked so much on myself but am still not quite comfortable sharing myself with others, not even those I am the closest to. Some of that might be the southern, societal notions of the “shoulds” and “Shouldn’ts.” “Women should be modest.” “Women shouldn’t be so revealing.” “You shouldn’t be so independent, you’ll never get a boyfriend.” “You should be less picky.” “You shouldn’t react like that.” “You should smile.” I’m slowly overcoming all the “shoulds” and “shouldn’ts” and i’m trying to de a better job of not putting them on to others. But these photos are of me exactly as I am with no (or very little) outside perceptions. .

My first self portrait on this trip was at a rest stop in Kentucky. A terrible storm was blowing through so I had stopped to wait it out. Playing with my camera I took a few photos of me in my rear view mirror. Much like with the photographs, upon my return to Atlanta in February I realized that I took photos of myself in the space to ground me to it. The process was first taking photos and understanding my own perspective of the environment, then I would place myself into the frame to ground myself to it. I had to physically look at myself in the space to know I was there. Then only after that was I comfortable enough to paint. Sad, content, happy, bored, lonely, horny, tired, excited, shy, confident, silly… they are all there.