Elizabeth Laurent Montague is my full name though I also often go by “just” Elizabeth Montague. Either way, I know, my name is a mouthful. Here’s a little history of the names that I have gone by in my life. From the day I was born in Ventura, CA until I went away to college in 1979, I went by the nickname “Buffy”, my mother said she called me that because my hair was buff colored when I was born, apparently she had been expecting a brunette. When I moved to Santa Barbara from Ventura after high school for college (and basically because my parents didn’t want me to postpone college and kicked me out), I didn’t feel comfortable with the name Buffy anymore, at the time the name Buffy had a preppy connotation, and I certainly did not want to be associated with that, being that I liked to think of myself as an experimental artist and musician. I started to go by the name Eliza, that lasted for a couple of years and then I just started going by my full real name Elizabeth. Laurent was my godfather James’ last name. My last name Montague, I just recently found out, has Irish roots, as far as I can tell, my great-great-great-grandfather Montague came to the United States from Ireland at some point prior to 1830.
I grew up on the beach, but also traveled extensively in 1976-1977, my mother wanted to see the world so she took me along as a travel companion. We traveled in several continents including North America, Africa, the Middle East and Europe. It was while we were in Africa that I first decided that I didn’t want to eat meat anymore after seeing all the amazing animals there. Though I tried to be vegetarian many times in my life, it wasn’t until 40 years later that I became and have remained vegan.
I’ve always loved animals, as a child I had many pets (hamsters, parakeets, a rooster, fish and several dogs), as an adult I’ve had 3 dogs, 3 cats, fish and an amphibian. I’m very concerned and passionate about the rights and health of animals, ALL animals. I have a project website called Fellow Creatures which I’ve been working on for many years when time permits.
Inspired by current and past art and music and the World art and history experienced during my travels, I studied fine art, design, music, animation, film, video and writing at the University of California in Santa Barbara and at California Institute of the Arts in Valencia (also a class or two at UCLA, Ventura City College and LA City College), I graduated from CalArts in 1988. I started making and performing music in 1980 in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles. I’ve shown art in Los Angeles and in New Orleans starting in 1986. These days I mainly just show my art and design on the internet.
I continue to write, make art and music when time permits, but mainly these days I spend nearly all my time in graphic, motion and sound design. My design business website is DSIGNWRX. There you will find my graphic design portfolio and design blog. Here are some mostly old photos of me over the years and here’s links to my various art portfolios.
