Jean Smith
Jean Isabel Smith (born 1959) is a Canadian musician, writer and painter. Smith was first known as the lead singer of the Vancouver band Mecca Normal, and later as a painter. 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 movement. Painting. In 2000, Smith's series of watercolour self-portraits (1973–1999, from age 13 onward) were exhibited at Olympia's Ladyfest 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 "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 in 1998. Chapbooks "The Family Swan and Other Songs" (2002) and "Two Stories" (2006) were published  by "Get to the Point".