In memory of Ginny Talamasca
It's amazing how much one can be affected by virtual friendship. I remember first meeting Ginny Talamasca when I was a wee newb. My friends were raving about her store, Dazzle Haute Couture, where she mostly sold formal wear. From that moment on, I was addicted to her clothing. I literally bought 99% of what she made. Given the amount of real money I spent keeping up with her heavy production of attire, I soon needed a Second Life job to support my habit. That's how I got into Machinima.
When I first discovered this new method of expressing myself, I went wild with filming. Then I discovered that I could make my avatar lipsync what I was saying. I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I was going to create a Machinima declaring how great I thought Ginny was as a friend, a designer, and an inspiration to the community. I would invite her friends to say kind words about her and I would animate them. The project never ended up getting very far off the ground, but as a filmmaker is often married to their footage, most of it was saved. Upon hearing of his (she would later be revealed as a man in real life) death, I unearthed some of this footage.
Read on for more memories of Ginny ...
Being that I was brand new at making Machinima, my footage was awful, and my Crazy Talk animation was even worse. However, it brings back so many memories for me. I recall when I first encountered her. I gushed like a little fangirl. I would often find her on the roof and ask her a billion questions. She had to expand her store quite a few times as her popularity grew. Eventually Ginny and Lo Jacobs came out with a skin line, Crushed. After that, she marked down most of her clothing and closed down her store for a few months. When it came back up, it was attached in a quad formation to ETD, Canimal, and Celestial Studios. The new line wasn't always my cup of tea, but it was classic Ginny, and you couldn't fault her for that.
When I read the blog entry about Ginny's death on her website, I wasn't quite sure who died. It revealed that there were two people behind the Dazzle clothing line, but the person who wrote the entry hadn't died. It was written by Ginny. I refused to believe it. Then Starley Thereian's blog entry came out, discussing her attending his funeral. Words just can't express my sorrow for this situation. The fashion community will feel Ginny's loss for quite some time, but her friends will never forget her.
I know the video doesn't show much, but you never go into something thinking you should save footage in case something happens. If you have any film of Ginny, please let me know and I can assemble it into something.
