Jean Smith says she started painting watercolor portraits of herself in 1973, at age 13, as a way of shoring up her self-image against her emotionally abusive parents, who were artists themselves. When she graduated from high school she got a cash grant to attend art school, but rather than enroll in classes, she used the money to buy a bitchin’ stereo, then moved into an apartment in a cooler part of Vancouver, her hometown.
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She met David Lester in 1981 while both were working in the production department at a Vancouver alternative weekly. The two collaborated on an underground anarchist paper for a few years and then, in 1984, started the minimalist punk band Mecca Normal. Two years later they released their first record, and today, after nine more albums, innumerable tours, and the founding of a publishing company, they’re still writing songs about poverty, capitalism, feminism, and relationships between men and women, hoping to inspire other people to cultivate self-worth through art.
