Jean Isabel Smith (born 1959) is a Canadian writer, painter and the lead singer of the Vancouver band

Mecca Normal Mecca (; officially Makkah al-Mukarramah, commonly shortened to Makkah ()) is a city and administrative center of the Mecca Province of Saudi Arabia, and the holiest city in Islam. It is inland from Jeddah on the Red Sea, in a narrow valle ...

Career

Music

Smith co-founded Mecca Normal with bandmate David Lester in 1981, while the two were working together at a Vancouver newspaper. Mecca Normal is considered a forerunner of the 1990s politically charged

riot grrrl Riot grrrl is an underground feminist punk movement that began during the early 1990s within the United States in Olympia, Washington and the greater Pacific Northwest and has expanded to at least 26 other countries. Riot grrrl is a subcultur ...

movement.

Painting

In 2000, Smith's series of watercolour

self-portrait A self-portrait is a representation of an artist that is drawn, painted, photographed, or sculpted by that artist. Although self-portraits have been made since the earliest times, it is not until the Early Renaissance in the mid-15th century tha ...

s (1973–1999, from age 13 onward) were exhibited at

Olympia The name Olympia may refer to: Arts and entertainment Film * ''Olympia'' (1938 film), by Leni Riefenstahl, documenting the Berlin-hosted Olympic Games * ''Olympia'' (1998 film), about a Mexican soap opera star who pursues a career as an athlet ...

Ladyfest Ladyfest is a community-based, not-for-profit global music and arts festival for feminist and women artists. Individual Ladyfests differ, but usually feature a combination of bands, musical groups, performance artists, authors, spoken word an ...

Art Show. The self-portrait series is included in Mecca Normal's music, art and lecture event ''How Art & Music Can Change the World'' which, since 2002, Smith and Lester have been presenting in university and high school classrooms, art galleries, indie media outlets and book stores. The lecture was presented on an April 2009 tour marking Mecca Normal's twenty-fifth anniversary after which it evolved into Smith's adaptation of David Lester's graphic novel The Listener (Arbeiter Ring, 2011) which deals with similar themes. Smith has continued the self-portrait series in watercolour, video and photography, including photos from her online dating profiles in her

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

''Attraction is Ephemeral'' — the title of a song on Mecca Normal's 2006 album ''The Observer''. She began a series of paintings in 2016 to the present that she sells each day via Facebook posts to raise money to create an artist residency in Vancouver.

Writing

In August 1993, Smith's first novel ''I Can Hear Me Fine'' was published by David Lester's publishing company ''Get to the Point''. Her second novel, ''The Ghost of Understanding'', was published by

Arsenal Pulp Press Arsenal Pulp Press is a Canadian independent book publishing company, based in Vancouver, British Columbia. The company publishes a broad range of titles in both fiction and non-fiction, focusing primarily on underrepresented genres such as und ...

in 1998. Chapbooks ''The Family Swan and Other Songs'' (2002) and ''Two Stories'' (2006) were published by ''Get to the Point''.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Jean 1959 births Living people Feminist artists Feminist musicians Film directors from Vancouver Musicians from Vancouver Writers from Vancouver Canadian indie rock musicians Canadian women film directors Canadian women guitarists Canadian punk rock guitarists Canadian punk rock singers Canadian women singers Canadian women novelists Canadian women poets 20th-century Canadian novelists 21st-century Canadian poets 20th-century Canadian women writers 21st-century Canadian women writers Women punk rock singers