The Savannah Shuffle

Tonight is Mellow Mushroom (my absolute favorite pizza).

Tomorrow is gallery hopping, barbequeing, free concert attending craziness.

a pic for url

Well, here I am, thinking thoughtfully about life, love and the pursuit of gelato.

Where is that gelato?

From Savannah with Love

Hey all,

I'm in sunny, hot, humid Savannah (hangin' with Amanda). It's so great to be back here with my friends and have a chance to see everyone. My Thesis Show is tonight. I am going to be grateful when it's over. My whole graduate career has been leading up to this moment (well, and getting jobs too, that's important). After the show we're all going to the Crystal Beer Parlor (the after party) and then who know's what else (the after-after party). I love the Crystal Beer Parlor, especially on Friday nights. They have a real New Orleans style band that plays there, and they are wonderful. They always wind down the evening with a rousing version of "When the Saint's go Marching In". Great song.

Well, I have alot to do this coming week and I'm not particualry looking forward to all the paperwork and office hopping it will involve. My least favorite think about SCAD is the insane amount of paperwork. Sometimes I feel like Radar on MASH. "Is everything signed, Radar?" "Yes, Sir, in triplicate!"

I wanna' check you fer ticks!

Okay, so that Brad Pasely song is incredibly disgusting. However, I found a tick on Scout (my border collie) today that was the size of two jelly beans. You should check your dog for ticks. Soooooooooo disgusting. Poor Scout, I get grossed out when I find one on my shoe, let alone attached to my body and sucking blood. But perhaps dogs don't think about those sorts of things.

Anyways, I'm heading to Savannah, GA on Thursday. I feel so tired and run down right now. I have zero motivation, and I still have to finish my artist statement and my thesis paper, among other things. I am so ready to be done with school. Six years of higher education is enough. My future is unclear, and I will have huge college debts to pay back. My whole situation kind of drains any excitement I would be having because of graduation. I am very excited to see my friends though, especially Amanda, Shannon, Betsy and Karin and to walk down Bull Street and sip some coffee at Gallery.

I will miss Savannah. I hope I have a chance to visit every once in a while.

Just...really...tired :(

New Thesis Stuff

Wildwood Flower

Oh I'll twine with my mingles and waving black hair
With the roses so red and the lilies so fair
And the mirtles so bright with the emerald dew
The pale and the leader and eyes look like blue

I will dance I will sing and my laugh shall be gay
I will charm every heart in each crown I will sway
When I woke from my dreaming my idols were clay
All portions of love had all blown away

Oh he taught me to love him and promised to love
And to cherish me over all others above
How my heart is now wondering no misery can tell
He's left me no warning no words of farewell

Oh he taught me to love him and call me his flower
That was blooming to cheer him through life's dreary hour
Oh I long to see him and regret the dark hour
He's gone and neglected his pale wildwood flower

Camping

Almost every year my family goes camping in Hocking County, a region just south of Colombus, OH. Hocking Hills State Park has some beautiful scenery including ravines, waterfalls, steep cliffs, caves and bubbling streams full of tiny fish. It really is one of my favorite places. It's a recharge place. When I go, I feel as if the world isn't so crazy and I'll be okay. No cell phones, no TV, no email, just me dangling my legs over the edge of a cliff while I watch a beautiful waterfall.

Some interesting things that happened this weekend:

Found a tiny salamander (about an inch long) in a stream at Cedar Falls.
Sang opera in a tunnel carved out of rock at Old Man's Cave (Beth would not sing along with me because she is a party pooper).
Skinned my elbow (oddly enough, it kind of felt cool to have a skinned elbow, made me feel as if I was a tough mountian climber).
Saw numerous wildflowers (all of which my mother could identify).
Ate waaaayyyyy too many potatoe chips (but hey, I was on vacation).
Saw a huge groundhog sitting on a fence post (what's up with that?).

All in all, it was a good weekend. I needed it more than I knew.

First Thesis Image

See what you think! I've gotten some great feedback from various people and I'm happy with the finished product :)

Some Old Stuff

I was going through my images today in an attempt to get my portfolio together and I found a couple oldies but goodies.

First up, an oil pastel copy of a Da Vinci sketch.

Next, Miss Elizabeth Bennet.

Okie Noodling (not for the faint of heart)

Per Brad's advice, I watched "Okie Noodling" last night on PBS. Hand fishing, a time honored tradition in several states south of the Mason-Dixon line, is by no means a popular sport. But there are those few brave souls who will stick their hand down into a slimy catfish hole, wait for the sucker to nibble, and then grab it and yank it out of its murky lare.

You have to be incredibly brave or incredibly stupid to noodle. I haven't decided which one yet. Perhaps a little of both is best.

If you have an inkling to noodle, you'll have to go to Tennessee, Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Louisiana. It's illegal everywhere else.

My mommy picked me some Lilly of the Valley

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.