holy hell I love that girl

One of my tasks for CanSec this year was to find some last-minute artists for a new line of merch, stickers and t-shirts. I immediately tapped Eliza. As gigs go, it was quick and dirty, but her work, as always, is splendid. These are the two of the three designs she offered that we’re going with, a cyber re-mix of the New Yorker’s most iconic cover and a tribute to Jamie Hewlett. If you would like to hire her for a commission of your own, you can find her portfolio at ElizaGauger or follow her personal blog at 3liza. She also runs regular live video art broadcasts at Sweatshop.tv, (which are announced on her Twitter), and occasionally has work for sale at Sweatshop’s BigCartel.

if you’re staying in tonight, do it with some grace

via Eliza:

SIAMESE SWEATSHOP: Tag Team with Special Guest Artist Vol Hydrogen
Date: Friday, November 13, 2009
Time: 5:00pm – 8:00pm PST
Location: http://www.justin.tv/toxoplasm/

Vol Hydrogen is an upcoming surrealist designer and illustrator from the SF Bay Area. With a solid background in traditional skills like anatomy, clothing and character design, and concept art, she joins SWEATSHOP slavedriver EG Gauger for a few hours of two-headed horror.
Vol and I will be drawing/painting on a giant canvas that will then be cut up into jigsaw pieces, and sold individually. You should watch the entire process live, tonight, or you may miss out on snapping up the pieces as they go on sale.

Oooh, lookie!

Tony apparently commissioned Eliza to create portraits of us as part of The Very Commercial SWEATSHOP. I adore what she’s done, Tony’s a delicious aristocrat and I’m a hot Armenian. Sweet!

A Very Commercial Sweatshop: Tony & Jhayne

EDIT: I’ve gone and bought delicious frames for these, and the one of Tony is going to live with me in Vancouver and the one of me is going to live in Seattle with him! And we have wings! Wings!!! So freaking awesome!

Seattle: what I’m doing this weekend, a partial list

ANACHROTECHNOFETISHISM: artifacts by pioneers of american steampunk.

“Long before the age of the internet, and well before the cold efficiency of the assembly line, existed fantastic and terrible machines, run on hope, sweat, and steam.
It was a time in which form and function lived in sin, and everyman was a revolutionary.

We are 13 American artists united by broad geography and narrow aesthetic.

Marrying narrative and nostalgia to design and technology, we imagine the triumphs of the past overriding the failures of the present to create from the ruins and detritus a dazzling future-perfect.


From Eliza,

Starring me and twelve other retropostapocalypticians, including Molly Porkshanks and Jake von Slatt, this show will feature insane amounts of designer teas and chocolates, a full set of my fine art prints, and a half-dozen original oil paintings that I have never shown in public, including Shine, Rustbutton Brass, the City, Afterglow, Twilight in the Roachfields (What I Did On My Summer Vacation), and most ridiculous of all, the Vacuum Traffic Controller: a 40 x 66″ collossus that I hope will dominate the room with his deep, slightly furrowed gaze.”

September 12 – October 3, 2008
Opening Reception: September 12 6:00 PM – 10:00 PM
SUITE 100 GALLERY: 2222 2nd Ave Suite 100, Seattle, WA 98121 (206) 956.3900

::..::

She also has a second show opening this weekend in Seattle, a solo affair launching on Saturday the 13th at Lighthouse Roasters, (400 North 43rd Street), from 4pm – 7pm. “The flagship painting, an original oil on a 24 x 24″ circular board, is the Cardiographer: dark, slick, and glowing, a portrait of a ghost-muse spinning a pulse out from ectoplasm. Co-stars include brand new (as of yesterday) 12 x 12″ Flee, a silvered landscape with robot on the lam; the ever-popular Bat Smax, an extremely adorable collaboration with my partner in rape-and-pillage, Jhonen Vasquez; the complete set of original sketches for the Bee Commission (monsters, demons, and vespid whores); and a full host of fine art prints, including many that won’t be shown at the steampunk show because they simply are not steampunk. And of course, refreshments will be served. Which is really the only reason to show up to an art opening in the first place.”

And, at my gentle nudging, it’s been decided that after her coffeehouse show, we’re all going to saunter over to Toren’s The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets concert at The Funhouse, (206 5th Ave N), where they’ll be calling up non-euclidean demons with BLOODHAG, (“Our mission is to spread the gospel of Edu-Core. Bang The Head That Does Not Read. Everyone Smarter Than Everyone Else. Use Heavy Metal music to promote literacy and vice versa. General Info: BloodHag play really short Heavy Metal songs about Science Fiction authors.”) and The Keeper, (“D&Dish wizard rock. Our EP is called Twenty Sided DIE!.”). Angel is a good friend of Jake, from BLOODHAG, and she warns us, “be prepared to be pelted with Sci fi books!”

I could still fall in love with you

Does anyone know of a professional alteration shop that won’t break the bank?

I have a line on a fairly simple gown that I would like to be a bit more complex. Mostly the skirt ruched up with tulle put underneath as the green one is on this page, or with something on top, as the red one is, yes, flowery bits and all, if that’s easier. It’s about time I admitted myself a flowery bit of girlishness rather than have certain aspects of femininity drift blankly past me like a painted-eye shopping mall crowd after a fire.

  • the feeling of some love.

    Last Sunday I went to Seattle, and after a pleasant ride down with Brian’s friend, Jane, long silver hair, the pretty violet mannerisms of a relaxed bird, I found myself in the grand company of Eliza, who walks like she really means it and takes two hours to decide what to wear. It felt somehow like I was speaking with an echo of something I used to believe in. Three days of barely sleeping, being thrown into a car with a familiar stranger, a city I’m not familiar with. I felt like a game of jeweled cards was playing inside my head where I didn’t know the rules. I appreciated her friends, they were relaxing, a black clothes contingent to take my hand and keep me standing through my weary run. more pictures soon.

  • the feeling of my workplace.

    People have been repeatedly sending Robert Newman’s History of Oil to me the last few days. I am remiss in not posting it immediately, I’m sorry. (I forget more people read here). It’s a shining and clever monologue that discusses the critical political issues of war and energy use in an exceedingly accessible manner. He gracefully binds imperative information in laughter and ties it all up with a fun sense of charming levity, which may sounds silly, but it really needs to be seen to be properly understood. Watch it as soon as possible!

    Quote of the Day: Andrew: “I think it says bad things about me when I try and go to the site http://super.cali.fragi.listic.expi.ali.do.cio.us/ and get disappointed that no one has made it yet.”