Kristin Haddad doesn’t remember a time when she wasn’t painting.
“I was always painting from when I was a little tiny kid,” she said.
Haddad would watch her grandmother, Meme, a canvas painter, in her studio. It was Haddad’s favorite place to be.
Today, she’s a pinstriper, designer and artist in East Haddam, Connecticut. She’s owner of Killustrate It and specializes in pinstriping classic cars.
She calls herself the “Lady Pinstriper.”
At first she shied away from her identity.
“More often than not, people wouldn’t trust me or they would treat me a certain way, which made me feel belittled,” she said.
But then she decided to embrace being a woman who paints cars.
Her father and uncles were into motorcycles and cars throughout her life. Haddad has an affinity for big trucks, which came from her grandfather’s construction business.
Painting fine lines on classic cars requires a lot of attention to detail — and patience.
Every time she takes on a project, Haddad says she nearly has a panic attack.
Then she tells herself: “Snap out of it!”
But she loves getting “in the zone.”
“I just kind of sink into this state where nothing else matters,” she said. “That's all there is in the world. Time just dissolves. ... The viscosity of the paint is perfect. The brush is working perfectly.”
There’s nothing greater than that, she said. And she can’t imagine doing anything else.
“I hope to paint around the world,” she said, “be paid vast sums of money, do what I love and be wild forever more!’
Learn more about Haddad in Connecticut Public’s latest Mini-Doc.
