Shout Out!

Shout out to my dear friend Shannon, who reads my blog ;)

NEW STUFF!!!

Hey there all the 3 people who read my blog!!!

I updated some stuff. I now have a super awesome header with dandylions. I love dandylions and I'm not sure why they are considered a weed. When my sister and I were kids, we used to pick dandylions and smear the pollen on our noses to turn them yellow! Okay, so we may occasionally still smear pollen on our noses. I suppose being a yellow-noser is better than being a brown-noser. Of course, my sister will still argue that I am indeed and have always been a brown-noser. I prefer the term "people pleaser".

There's a quote from the movie "Kate and Leopold" in which Kate's rather foppish boss announces that he is, "a people pleaser, people." Gakkk.

Also, I recently ordered:

A brand new MacBook with JBL Creature Speakers and a printer. I am very, very, excited. I can't wait until the UPS guy brings me my shiny new Mac! What rejoicing there will be on that day (anywhere from May 1st to May 5th).

My Mac will be Mac-a-licious, Mac-tastic, Mac-fabulous, and Mac-dreamy.

Okay, Okay, so I'm going off the deep end. However, finally getting a Mac is a momentous occasion for me. I will be one of them, the fortunate Mac owners. The few, the proud, the artsy. On cold, windy days I would look through the windows of coffee shops, my breath clouding the glass, as I longingly gazed at the PowerBooks and the MacBooks. How sleek they were, how elegant and refined...

Ooookkkaaayyyy, so I really went crazy with that last paragraph.

The End.

New Illustrations!

I've been working on some new illustrations for my pattern class. I illustrated several flowers native to Indiana, including the trout lilly (above). I have to say that I am most pleased with the trout lilly, but the stems are kind of chunky. Ah, well. I suppose it is an artist's fate to be overly critical of her own work (that is how we get better).

I also just realized that I have a month to get all this stuff done. Oh dear.

Redneck Jokes

You might be a redneck if...

...you've ever had to lug a can of paint to the top of a water tower to defend your sister's honor!

--Jeff Foxworthy

You might be a redneck if...

...you've ever taken a joyride in a John Deer Gator.

--Talitha Shipman

Okay, so mine isn't nearly as comical as Jeff's, but I did see a couple taking a joyride in a Gator a couple of days ago. Yes, I do live amongst hicks. And I might even be a little hickish myself. Cuz' I, "wanna kick off my shoes and run in bare feet where the grass and the dirt and the gravel all meet...where the blacktop ends". And I occasioanlly burst out into a round of, "you get a line, I'll get a pole, we'll go fishing in the crawfish hole, five card poker on a Saturday night, church on Sunday mornin' ". And I might even say something like, "dag'nab'it" when I drop a bowl of Kashi organic bran flakes on the kitchen floor.

But you know, "I feel no shame, I'm proud of where I came from, I was born in raised in the boondocks".

Oh, boy, I'm strange.

P.S. I also have a hard time pronouncing George Washington's name correctly. I tend to say "Warshington". I blame this completely on my father who says things like "warshcloth".

Must be a Northwest Ohio thing ;)

Ummm, Fortune Maybe...

I can't seem to get my image to load :(

Sorry to let you down. I'll try to get the image up when Blogger decides to behave.

Thanks,

Talitha

Ho Hum

You know, posting blogs is akin to writing an editorial. It's not very much like a diary. I usually don't let people peruse my most intensely personal thoughts. A blog fulfills a different need; the need to complain, muse, mourn, or rejoice publicly.

So what if my public consists of 2 or 3 people (shout out to Larissa and Betsy).

In this age of instant information, where everyone is connected to some degree (of Kevin Bacon). Okay, so that was a throw away. I live in a techno community which consists of all my Savannah, Leo, and Taylor friends. I can keep tabs on them through email and blogs! It's not the same as hanging out with them at Sentient Bean, or laughing hysterically to 1 AM in a dorm room, but I am grateful for the chance to remain, in some small way, a part of their lives. Gotta' try to remain!

Bad Day

My fighting fish died last night.
I got into a fight with my dad this morning.
It's snowing.

Bad day.

New Links!!!

See some awesome new links under "Check it Out". I would especially urge you to visit The Wish Jar!

One of my biggest pet peeves is the fact that non-artists have been mislead to think they cannot be creative. You can be creative! The Wish Jar is a website/blog dedicated to helping people be a little more creative every day.

Go there and be creative! That's an order!

The DMV Blues

Went to the DMV today. Waited in line for a very long time. Got my picture taken. Hair is sticking up funny. Of course! My face looks thinner and less childish than in my last driver's license photo.

I'm twenty five as of yesterday. I don't feel different or more mature. I still feel as if I'm mucking through life in an attempt to make sense of things. I still see myself as a "little one". I know that I am more fortunate than most people. I mean, there is an overarching purpose to my life, and I can sense that. But sometimes, the day to day junk of life clutters my mind. Lately, whenever I watch T.V., inevitably an ad for some prescription medication comes on and I am instantly reminded of the seconds ticking away in which my life is getting shorter. I don't try to dwell too much about my mortality. After all, I am still young, and life is for living, not for fretting. However, when I am forced to focus upon my heart beating away and my lungs breathing, I am aware in that split second of fear that this luxury will not continue forever.

Vanitas. The idea that even in beautiful youth, there is a seed of mortality, of death lurking behind the unfurling petals of spring's first bloom. A reminder to LIVE like you're going to die soon. And in reality, you will. A human life span is the sort of thing comparable to one nano-second from God's perspective.

This is all very dreary and morbid. But if I do not think on these things and write them down, they won't mean as much to me as if they were just floating around in my head, bouncing off the grocery lists and class assignments and myriads of deadlines my mind is attempting to recall.

Right now, the radio is playing "Dream A Little Dream for Me" and the cappuccino machine is foaming milk. A good sound. Life is good.

Leaving and Home

I am home. You know, it's a strange thing, to come back to a place that you know so well after being gone for a while. Some things remain the same, but others don't. Little things are moved, replaced, or forgotten. My room is crowded with too much junk. I'm trying to fit an entire apartment into my one little room. It's at times like these that I wish I was able to be one of those people who seems to have only a very few belongings. I am sick of all this stuff. I don't really need it. Except for the art supplies. I do need those!

Being an artist also means that you are a collector. You collect other people's art, and you save everything you've ever made, because you never know who might want to buy it from you. You also collect scraps of things that are inspirations. Leaves, moss, postcards, textured paper, little bottles, ribbons, plastic army men...

I suppose I should give an overview of the past few days, just to write it down and get it out of my head. This past week is very blurry. I'm trying to remember everything, but I have this funny habit of blocking out stressful or traumatic events. I don't remember much of middle school at all! Thank God! I said goodbye to many dear friends, and I don't know what will happen to them while I'm gone. I miss them, and I want to be the best friend I can be, but the distance makes everything harder. I'm going to miss Amanda and Megan most of all, Compline, walks to the river, Molly's, Gallery Espresso, and that hoity toity antique store on Bull Street.

(a side note on the antique store: it had a row of windows that covered most of the Bull St. side of the building. I would always check myself out in those windows, to see how I walked. Watching yourself walk is a strange thing. Did I walk with flare and elegance, or did I shuffle along like a burned out college student? I could get pretty melodramatic watching myself, pretending I was some tragic heroine destined for greatness. I only looked like a shabby art student. I also always hoped that the employees inside the store got the impression that I was looking at the antiques in the windows and not at my vain self).

Oh, yeah, back to the main point: Every time I live somewhere new, I seem to forget that I will eventually be leaving. It hurts. You have to gouge out a small part of yourself and leave it behind you when you are done with a place. Call it what you will, the ghost, the effect, the memory of you and your time in a place fades but never vanishes. How can something fill you up and leave you empty at the same time? That is what it's like to leave.