I haven't blogged since I was in college, and I definitely feel weird about doing it now that I'm 32. But lots of people blog, and I usually just feel weird in general, so...
Hi! My name is Tabitha, I grew up in Portland Oregon and I still live here. It's different now than it was, not just because of the madness of 2020, but because of a lot of things; Portlandia for one. Even though I was on that show once, I still hold this bitterness in my heart for how it affected our little town.
Change is good though! Change is progress. At least that's how I've grown to see it, although it doesn't always make it easier.
That paragraph on the "About" page, really was my life once. I grew up on a dead end street that's still unpaved. We used to have some little farms around us, and lots and lots of trees. I used to lay in the grass and talk to the trees like they were all standing over me watching. As I grew up, the trees fell one by one. That apple tree was cut down, and the livestock slowly vanished. My street is hardly recognizable from the 90s.
The first picture on the left, is a picture of Hawthorne Blvd in the 90s. I didn't live on Hawthorne, but I went there a lot with my friends when we were teenagers. There were maybe 5 trendy stores that I can remember from that time, but one was a punk shop I remember thinking I was so cool for shopping at.
The picture above on the right is the old playground at my elementary school, Gilbert Park. I got sick on that tire swing. The center is me acting a fool in the soccer field.
This is where my best friend and I would wait to get drugs from her dealer when we'd skip school. Not inside the lesbian bar, but the bus stop outside. Although I always wanted to go in there.
They changed it to Weird bar later on, which didn't last that long. This photo ^^^ is closer to what it looks like now.
Here's more old Portland, because now I'm indulging.
You may be looking at these thinking, "wow that looks pretty dirty and run down," and it was.
There was one major thing missing from our city though, and that was diversity. (To put it lightly.)
Growing up as a Jehovah's Witness, I was no stranger to being the outcast. Every time a new kid would come to school I'd go talk to them, and try to make them feel welcomed. Until they found their own friend group and moved on from the shy little Witness girl, who couldn't hang with her friends outside of school. Kids who were not J-dubs, were considered "worldly" and therefore "bad association." This shaped my ideas of inclusion early, and became a fundamental belief system for me. So much so, that by the time I was 16, I was completely done with my religion because it was so excluding of others. I hated that "us" vs "them" mentality. Being raised in "the one true religion," and having all other religions be called "false," really make you question why other people are so nice to you if they're bad. Jenny was nice to me. She was the first to claim me as her best friend. Freshman year of high school I got my first best friend. Other girls I thought were my best friend would always make it very clear that Jodie, or Sarah, or Alix were their BEST best friend, but that I was a good friend nonetheless.
All of this is leading to why I draw cartoons. Cartoons were my escape. They were my friends, since I didn't really have any. I spent the better part of my young life in my 10'x10' bedroom talking to my stuffed animals (stuffed up toys is what I called them at the time), and drawing. I became obsessed with Lion King when it came out. We saw it in theaters and I sobbed when Mufasa died, like so many of us did. Gone too soon.
In first grade, my teacher, Mrs Ladu, (who was a 5' skydiver) had to have a meeting with my parents to try to convince me to draw something besides Lion King in my class journals. She wanted me to use my imagination, but my imagination was just re-living Simba's journey over and over again. I still have a stack of journals with crudely drawn African sunsets that maybe I'll blog sometime. What this led to however, was the idea of drawing stories; and that's what I started to do.
By fourth grade I had my own cast of characters I would draw in a comic that was titled "A Skit." My teacher thought I should focus more on my flair for writing, but my mom loved them. The characters were always animals, and usually based on my toys. I had one strip called "Flaps and Bip," featuring a lamb and a blob character. I still kind of like that name, now that I remember it. Another tag team duo I had a lot of comics about, were Spider and Wormy. I was terrified of spiders, so I drew one that was funny to me. Usually my jokes wouldn't land, but they'd get some praise and smiles, which I desperately craved.
Fast forward through Animaniacs, Freakazoid, Looney Toons, and all of the 90's Disney Renaissance, to art school.
PNCA, or Pacific Northwest College of Art, came to my high school career day my senior year. I'm not sure if I mentioned that Jehovah's Witnesses do not encourage further education, but it's frowned upon because of too much "worldly association." (Remember "worldly" is referring to anyone not in the Jehovah's Witness organization). But, by the time I was 17, I had left the organization. So I was free to pursue an art degree, if I could afford too.
We were not well off. My dad would say otherwise, but the facts insisted we live in poverty. An expensive private art school was not something I thought possible. Sarah, the woman who came to career day, told me about financial aid. What an idea! She said it was worth looking at, and what harm could it do to try? Apparently a lot when it came to filling out the FAFSA.
My dad was, and is still, a very private person. He doesn't like sharing his finances, or feelings for the most part. So when I handed him a form to fill out asking for his income and tax records he definitely 'wigged out.' Escalated by the fact, that the same night he sat down to do the FAFSA, was the same night he saw my fresh tattoo.
"I knew you were stupid, Tabitha, but I didn't know you were THAT stupid!" my dad said as he stood up and threw the FAFSA papers across the kitchen. You see, something really terrible had happened during that time. My friend Jenny I mentioned waiting at the bus stop with, remember? She was my best friend and she completed suicide a few weeks earlier on December 23rd 2006. My tattoo was for her, and I got it the day before her funeral; but I'll save that story for another time.
Eventually, the turmoil attached to the FAFSA subsided when my mom decided that she would be my co-signer. My mom in shining armor, who felt the weight of my depression, signed herself up for a $50k loan she'd never be able to pay back. I signed myself up for the other half, and now they just take my tax refunds so... whatever.
Art school helped me a lot as a depressive creative. It taught me to think critically, and gave me a whole new visual vocabulary to expand my work. I majored in General Fine Arts, and buzzed around all the departments like a hummingbird, thirsty for life's nectar. I was called a "jack of all trades, but a master of none," which I highly resented, and later changed to "well rounded."
I spent a lot of time in the print studio; silkscreening and experimenting with etching and lithographs. I also had a lot of painting classes, and found out that I really like painting with oil paints, they just take too long to dry sometimes. There were sculpture and 3D classes where I made an 8' tall monster out of stuffed animals, and a giant pencil out of a 2x4. But I didn't really feel my weight as an artist until I started animating and making videos. The whole time I was searching for my voice as an artist, I was discounting my cartooning. I felt like it wasn't as respectable as all the fine artists I compared myself to at school. However, that didn't stop me from drawing them, only from showing them.
It's funny the way life brings you back with it's unique ruby slippers. Circling you around in a whirlwind, only to end up exactly where you started. I've worked many jobs since college, and pursued many dreams... but every step of the way I drew cartoons. When someone was rude to me, I'd draw them as a cartoon to make myself feel better. When a coworker was moving on to a new job, I'd draw them as a cartoon with a little farewell message. When I sold cars, I'd draw my customers as animals to close deals (I'm serious); and when I started working at my current job I drew cartoons on post-its for my assistants to make their day.
Cartoons brought joy into my life, and I've been so happy to spread a little of that to others. It wasn't until I entered my 30s that I realized, I'm proud of drawing cartoons. This is actually what I want to do, and once that clicked, everything just kind of fell into place from there. I'm happy to share this with you now, and I hope you'll share your passions with me too.
Bye for now, I'll try to write again soon!
~Tabasauras
PS: OH! You might be wondering where tf did the dinosaur nickname come from? The answer is surprisingly simple; I made a very loud Pterodactyl sound in the common area of PNCA once and a friend gave me the nickname "Tabasaurus." I had a performance art band where I embraced this character and for a minute I was really thinking I'd become a pop star. So all of my social media accounts were claimed as "Tabasauras" (I ended it with an "as" at the end as apposed to "us" at the end, because it seemed more feminine like "niña vs. niño," and looked closer to my name. Later, as in recently, I've adopted "Tabasaurus" for the store because "us" feels more inclusive, like a collective. That and, I haven't tainted it with my failed music career as much. Luckily I bought all the domain names for both ages ago. 🦖
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