This is a portrait of a cowboy typical to many Western Americana paintings showcasing the “frontier.”  This particular cowboy portrait is specific to Texas, emphasizing this man’s horse and showcasing a Texas flag as a part of the backdrop.  This portrait represents my identity as a Texan, and one that has had family in Texas for generations.  All of my family members are proud of being Texan, and we can trace our ancestry in this great state back to the immigrants that first came here from Germany in the late 1700’s and early 1800’s.  Being a Texan is certainly part of who I am.  People often mistake, however, my identity as consisting of one of the stereotypes shown here in this picture.  I am often asked if my family owns horses or if I wore boots all the time, and people often assume that I understand what it’s like to live in a small town or to go to a small country school because I’m “from Texas.”  Even specifying that I am from Dallas doesn’t seem to help.  I have to thoroughly explain to most that I graduated in a class of 1,400 and I have ridden a horse only twice in my life (one instance of which was in Europe—not even western saddle!)  In order to represent the idea of a mixture of identities, I changed this portrait so that this cowboy is sporting high heels instead of boots.  This represents that, although, I am a Texas girl at heart, I am a feminine, fashionable, artist that also cares a great deal about the environment.  The skyline of Dallas can be seen photoshopped into the background as well.  This shows that, although I plan on sticking to my Texas stereotype of owning a gun, I am definitely a city girl, and will always prefer the urban scene to the rural plains.  Jenkin’s “How Text Becomes Real” discusses a situation in which fans of Star Trek take a show that makes up part of their artistic identity and make it their own by re-writing and re-imagining the storyline.  I felt that this was a great representation of taking another art and identity, taking pieces of that identity that fit you, and then adjusting it to be a better representation of how it fits you.  In the same way, I wanted to show my roots and pride as a Texan—complete with barbecue brisket and saying the pledge to the Texas flag—can still exist with my urban upbringing and artistic tendencies.