A little story

One of the highlights of this past summer was the Nateva festival in Oxford Maine...while this summer saw my attendance at many different festivals, Nateva was just perfect. Perfect company, perfect weather, perfect music.......it set a high standard for future festivals, for sure.

Fourth of July Weekend: We arrived at the festival late thursday night and set up camp, we had a great spot and had a great night settling in.

In the morning, lo and behold, a few tents had sprouted up in between our previously spacious camp site. Once these nice folks roused themselves they explained that they were the Adam Ezra Group, they played the festival the previous night (though sadly we had not caught this), and would we like a beer?

And of course the answer was: yes, we would like a beer! And a friendship was born. Always great to see these guys in town.

http://www.adamezra.com/

This past weekend they played at the Empire so I took the camera along to see them. This Way, also a very talented Portland based group, opened for them, as did the lovely Amanda Gervaisi.

This Way:

There's just something about a man with a fiddle.

Adam Ezra:

Adam Ezra with buddy Herb, who I swear just about died of his man-crush when called upon stage for some audience participation.

As always there's more pictures posted on my flickr site, link to the right. I've been asked a few times if I post all my photos up here/on facebook/on the interwebs in general, and no, I do not. I've gotta keep a few tricks up my sleeves here, right? If in the future I actually do a photography show, it'll consist mostly of previously unseen shots.

Happy Holidays, folks! Very soon I'm going to have some actual illustration to post up here, so stay tuned.

Big Gigantic with Dreamosaic

So this past weekend was an another adventurous weekend with the Foo Crew.....Dreamosaic opened for Big Gigantic at Port City Music Hall, local musicians that are always fun to hang with & watch, so we trooped on down for their Foo Crew needs.

Hanging out in the Green Room, which is actually purple.


Dreamosaic on stage......check them out at www.myspace.com/dreamosaic


Big Gigantic....

Saxophone, Drums, keyboard. Very cool stuff. We danced our butts off. It was a good night for the Foo Crew & myself.

It's been a pleasure shooting at Port City, Portland is definitely lucky to have such an awesome venue right in the heart of the downtown area. I'm gonna change it up this coming friday, look for me at the Empire with the Adam Ezra Group.

Kimmy's Oddball

Saturday night was Kimmy's Oddball, the first annual benefit for the Open Sky Fund. Open Sky is a wonderful charitable organization here in Portland that gets musical instruments to underprivileged kids. The Foo Crew, now in desperate need of naps and, perhaps, a decent meal, were also there to provide visuals and to document the festivities.

Jordan & Amanda Kaulbach with Zig Zag

The Barefoot Truth Dancers.

Amada Gervasi

The Beat Horizon

Kimmy gets a 40th birthday striptease, courtesy of artist Che Arajj. It was a really great time, despite being overtired and overworked, with so many great musicians & artists and assorted other oddballs. Many thanks to the awesome folks at Cow Pasture Productions for including myself and the other Foos in the festivities.

If you'd like to check out some of the other performers at the Oddball, click on my flickr link to the right.

http://www.openskyfund.org/

Midnight in the Valley of the Gods

Had an awesome time down at the Arm Factory Friday night, I threw up some blacklite deco for artist Heidi Moksha's blacklite art and WYREDFUX came out to provide the soundtrack......many thanks to Heidi, the Arm Factory & the rest of the Foo Crew for a great night.

for more info on the fine folks at the Arm Factory, go here; http://thearmfactory.com/

All Liz! All Weekend!

So, this part of the year is crazy as always....I'll be participating in no less than 4 events this weekend here in Portland, so a run down....first, I've submitted Murder Bear to the Sanctuary Gallery show - they'll have an opening tonight for First Friday, an Island of Misfit Toys themed event... they always have very fun shows, check them out at www.Sanctuarytattoo.com
The fine folks over at Cow Pasture Productions also invited me to bring some stuff over to an empty space they're using to show some local art and promote the first annual Oddball, which takes place tomorrow night at Port City Music Hall.....So they'll be an encore presentation of After Such a Fall as This for tonight's art walk along with work from some other very talented folks, so please head on over to the second floor of the State Theatre building to check it out during your art-walking. I volunteered my services as an event photographer for the Oddball, so I'll be there tomorrow night, camera in hand. The Oddball is a benefit for the Open Sky Fund, which gets musical instruments to underprivileged kids in Maine. There's a great line up for that event, which you can check out at www.portcitymusichall.com.
Later this evening I'll be over at the Arm Factory for "Midnight in the Valley of the Gods," which I was up late last night setting up for - Portland based artist Heidi Moksha has done a series of very awesome blacklite sensitive paintings, so I was summoned to throw up some of the Foo Crew's blacklite deco to really transform the place - and as of late last night it was looking really great. So if you're in Portland tonight I highly suggest after doing the art walk to head on down to the Arm Factory for the party - there will be food, live music, djs, coffee & cookies! Some very talented folks have come together to throw this party, it'll definitely be worth checking out, as is any event the Foo Crew decides to throw down for.

Sunday....I'll be sleeping, so don't call me. But I'm hoping to see y'all tonight or tomorrow somewhere around town.

cheers! Liz

Murder Bear

Sanctuary Gallery here in Portland does a few open calls a year, and for December the theme was Island of Misfit Toys. So I'm sending Murder Bear there, I think he may fit in.

With many thanks & sincerest apologies to beloved teddy and good sport "Honey"

Eoto

Eoto & Cyborg Trio played at the Port City Music Hall on saturday night. VJ Foo & the Great Noontide did the visuals for the show - so, in my role as art chick for the Foo Crew I grabbed my camera and headed down to document the festivities.

Eoto arrives & starts set-up.

Cyborg Trio warming up.

Michael Travis of Eoto - cleaning up after the show. This was the last shot of the night & also my favorite.


I got a lot of great shots, eventually I'll be putting more up....somewhere.

Pass the Hat

Album art for my friend Jeff's band Pass the Hat. It's meant to be reminiscent of the freemason symbol. The name of the band will be photoshopped into the banner before production. Ink on illustration board.

A side project....

Here in Portland we have a group of fire dancers that comes out and performs most friday nights in the old port - I've been going down and checking them out, camera in tow, the past few weekends. You can check some more of the shots I've taken by clicking on my flickr link to the right.

Harvest Ball - Deco

A look at the stage deco for Harvest Ball.

Bat Country

Some of the bats hanging up at Harvest Ball.

Harvest Ball

Flyers for the show next weekend. I am totally ready. Sort of.

Next Up.....

http://www.mainecommonsense.org/harrys_hill/newsite/

I'm currently working on an art installation for the Harvest Ball at Harry Brown's Farm, which is headlining the Jerry Garcia Band this year, very exciting! The project involves some umbrellas, and some reflective paint.......I'll be postin some photos from the show when that comes round....

Be Here Now, Electric Ave Part 2

Some pics from Harry's Hill, Electrolush did the lunar stage - so I went along to do the deco. We had a great weekend, very successful, and are doing it again in the fall. I had a great time with my camera that night; here are some of the results.


Dissolve setting up pre-show. Electric violin! Very cool.


Laser beams, always key.

View from the sound booth.

ALIEN

I've been working on the Deco for this show, June 26th at the SPACE gallery. Come on down, bring your dancin shoes and your glow sticks. I mean, we have FRIKKIN LASER BEAMS, people. Respect.

The Venus Trap

Colored Pencil on paper, from the valentine's show. This one got tossed and re-done about five or six times, which is the reason why the "detail" I posted in January is....not from the final piece at all. I like where this one landed; what started as a languid Grecian-goddess of temptation thing turned into something more like a fiery volcanic eruption. Sometimes a piece has to go through many drafts to get to the end - just like a manuscript. Other times the first draft is too strong to discard, as was the case for the Cupid piece below. What started as an excercise in colored pencil on this type of paper turned into a complete piece, and the only version. I'd say most of work goes through a lot of revision but sometimes, first time's a charm.

listed at $175.00, matted.

Cupid Ain't No Hero

Colored pencil on paper. From the Valentine's show at Stones n Stuff.

listed at $175.00, matted

(thanks to LA Mike for the hand-bill design)

Next Up...

Starting in April, I'll be showing at Nosh kitchen bar, here in portland. I'll be putting up some of the Alice in Wonderland/ Wizard of Oz work for the first time, so come on out and take a look. Also, Nosh is a pretty fabulous place; these are some serious food nerds, people, and they are not messing around.


http://www.noshkitchenbar.com/

FebruaryTwo-fer

February's First Friday will be a double feature; I'll be showing in the Morbid Valentines show at Stones n Stuff, and I'll be hanging the Four Horsemen back up as well, at Sanctuary Tattoo on Forest Ave in Portland, for their Heavy Metal show. Come on out, February 5th, openings will be held at both venues.