by Winter Rosebud

Elizabeth McGrath is real.  I am her best friend of 18 years.  I cannot vouch for the years that she spent in the Christian girls’ home, scribbling Slayer lyrics inside of bibles and getting locked in small wooden boxes for days on end, squatting in a puddle of piss and starving, as punishment, although I do believe its all so terribly true, and this is one of the reasons she is a common household name today.  I suppose the Lord works in mysterious ways!  Or the Devil does.

Elizabeth's works stem from a true rebellion that cannot be learned in school.  Her mediums are broad, working in oils, acrylics, spit, blood, cheese, dog poo – whatever's on hand at 3 A.M.  If you were to purchase one of her taxidermy sculptures, chances are there will be a few things embedded inside, such as old underwear, crusts from sandwiches, cigarette butts or anything to get the tails standing up properly.

Winter: So, Liz, what do you really use to make your creepy creatures?

Liz: I use a variety of materials, wire, foam, leather, fur, wood, different kinds of resin, as for unusual stuff I do recycle plastic grocery bags to use as filler over the wire, it’s more archival than stuffing, but you never know!

W: Leather and Fur? Do the PETA freaks breathe fire down your neck?

L: I haven't had any problems with them!  I used to have a studio next door to a clothing company that made leather clothes, they would throw out bags and bags of leather scraps, back then I was always scavenging for materials.

W: I can recall going on late night scavenging hunts with you through the rat infested alleys of downtown skid row, stealing cheese from supermarkets and usually winding up in a nice disease infested dive bar like King Eddy’s Saloon.

L: Yes!  We would find all kinds of good things!  That's where I got all the wood I used, and since downtown is where every Hollywood film is made you have access to all the junk they throw out after filming!  Good things, like chandeliers, Tiki bars, one time we found a coffin, I think the loft I have now has a bathtub with Jacuzzi jets from the show ‘Six Feet Under’; a find from the previous tenant.

W: Do you still scavenge for materials?  I'm not talking about what you find in my trash can either!

L: Unfortunately for me they have cleaned up skid row, they took the street signs off that said ‘Skid Row’, and opened thirty-two new galleries downtown and put up new signs that say ‘Gallery Row’, they have put gates on all the alleys so you can’t easily get into them anymore, good thing for me I can now afford to pay my assistants to go out into the night and climb over barbed wire fences in search of the perfect tiny accessories for my elaborate creations!

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