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 28-year run, with text by vocalist Jean Smith.
The Black Dot Museum of Political Art had been a joke amongst the four painters who shared the space—a running joke—until one of them randomly applied for funding to open a very small museum. As a studio, the 30-by-40 foot windowless room was loosely divided with easels and bookcases. Unsold paintings were used as partitions, affording each painter some privacy amongst his personal affects: books, magazines, jars of brushes, drawings scribbled on beer mats. None of them could be called tidy, and in the three years since art-school graduation, clutter had reached hoarder status.
There were definite advantages to working with other painters—shared expenses, critiques, bulk purchases of supplies and help lugging paintings—but there were drawbacks, too. They endured the unselfconscious behaviors of other artists in the throes of creativity. Like paper-thin walls at a cheap motel when you want to get some shut-eye, noise in the studio was always an issue. The sound of another human doing normal human things was a great distraction.
Adam, Mark, Bruce and Jeff would have preferred to work in silence, but that was a luxury they couldn’t afford. They needed space to paint loose and large. They lived communally with writers, musicians, filmmakers and other painters, renting small rooms in the old family homes around Vancouver’s Commercial Drive where their housemates partied most nights and always slept as late as they could before going to their restaurants or retail jobs.
The four met as students at Emily Carr, the regional art school located on Vancouver’s Granville Island. More precisely, they met at Opus, the art-supply store across the road from the school where they were employees, snagging discounted and damaged merchandise, hatching plans for group shows and scoping-out cheap studio space.
