Every Saturday, we’ll be posting a new illustration by David Lester. The Mecca Normal guitarist is visually documenting people, places and events from his band’s 26-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.
Hi Michael,
Happy New Year.
Contacting the gallery without a timeframe isn’t the best way to proceed, but I know galleries require a lot of lead time. I need to figure out the when part of the puzzle before pitching our event. Actually, I’m wondering what the timeframe is for the end of classes this year. April into May potential. I am starting to formulate a possible plan—flying to Milwaukee for events in Racine, Evanston, Chicago and maybe Champaign-Urbana, as well as shows on the west coast. Vancouver, Seattle, Olympia, Portland. A two week rock show, lecture art exhibit tour. Flying SeaTac to Milwaukee is $94 each way, while Chicago is $149 (adding $200 to total airfare if we went in and out of Chicago).
I am starting week four working at a fabric store—$9 an hour, part time on an ever-changing schedule that intends to make it impossible to secure employment elsewhere. Pure evil. They keep staff at part time, at their disposal, seven days a week. It almost pays my expenses. If I buy nothing. It’s the sort of job that I will need to quit and while I’m in my preferred state of unemployment, I figure—why not do a rock tour?
Sometimes people suggest that I work in arts administration, but it is part of a more stimulating process to be out in the general work force, challenging myself in this way. At the fabric store I haul around heavy rolls of cloth, measuring and cutting cloth for customers who are involved in creative projects. The clientele is 95{e5d2c082e45b5ce38ac2ea5f0bdedb3901cc97dfa4ea5e625fd79a7c2dc9f191} women—primarily East Indian and Chinese with about 30{e5d2c082e45b5ce38ac2ea5f0bdedb3901cc97dfa4ea5e625fd79a7c2dc9f191} Caucasian, quite a few of whom are Russian.
Thanks for your comments on the MAGNET series—it has turned out to be a very good project between David and I. Applying our individual and collaborative strengths in forms other than Mecca Normal. Some of the writing comes from the novel I’ve been working on for about five years—Love Wants You. I hope to get it done this week and send out queries to literary agents. It’s “about” online dating experiences, but more accurately—it shows human behaviour. I received a Canada Council for the Arts award to write it. And yes, I can see doing a tour of stories and paintings based on this material.
In the illo, text and mp3 terrain—our long history of turning almost nothing into rather a lot is brought into focus by pushing the audience to interpret nearly-unrelated components. If the song, the text and the illo were all about the same thing, it would be a closed system without encouragement to grapple with their lack of noticeable connectivity. I love it that the three elements create a tension similar to the way Mecca Normal operates, where the music and the words aren’t always complimentary—or even complementary. Mecca Normal listeners are invited to consider the “missing elements”. I like including what isn’t there by assertively foisting ourselves into inappropriate situations, placing ourselves where we shouldn’t be. Non-academics presenting a lecture, the rock element at a poetry reading, the poetry at a punk rock show. I am least comfortable in front of like-minded supporters.
If you have any ideas for either literary agents or publishers, I’d be very grateful for your input. We’re getting some great unsolicited responses to the MAGNET series, although, in general, I think our audience and fans are not big on making comments—which, in a way, underscores our strange operating stance. We do things regardless of reaction and profit because this is how we want to live our lives—collaborating on projects, presenting work through means we make available to ourselves, making things happen without being high profile artists who require validation of our worth through positive reaction and profit.
Don’t get too choked about host anxiety. We did an event in April with less than a dozen students and then we stayed with the host for two days—everyone survived. I think we just raided her fridge extra hard in retaliation for the small turn-out, but then, weeks later, one of those students wrote to say that after the lecture she and friend talked about our ideas for hours. She said we’d had a profound impact on her creative output—she was still gliding along on our inspiration. I’m not going to make that cliché statement about the value of inspiring just one person—I do what I do because it is what I love to do. I’m selfish that way.
If we could arrange to have the lecture videoed and archived—streamed—(jeez, two crappy verbs in one sentence… videoed and streamed… ) that increases the value of a visit.
The questions here are—when do classes end? April, May. And—any ideas for literary agents and publishers.
Jean
