There’s something that I don’t want to tell you—my inner hipster has reared its pretentious head, and wants to protect its new underground gem from going mainstream. But you need to know. (And other nightclubs need to catch on.)
It’s called the People’s Painting Party, and it’s spectacular. Every Tuesday night at 7 p.m., the progressive Temple nightclub, located in San Francisco’s Financial District, converts its basement dance floor into an artistic free-for-all, complete with paint, paintbrushes, strobe lights, a DJ who knows his trap and old school rap, and four enormous, white paint-slathered boards for your co-creative enjoyment. Oh, and some of the cheapest drinks in the city, at $3 a beer and $5 for wells. The best part? Free (I said it, FREE) entrance for all lucky souls over the age of 21.
It wasn’t love at first sight. My friends and I arrived at 8 p.m. to a seemingly-empty storefront and an intimidating (as required) bouncer, who granted us access into what became a deafening and dimly-lit basement that left me worrying I’d been eternally damned to collegiate frat-party hell. I wanted to scream and run in the opposite direction. I wanted to run even faster when I saw how talented the few people who were painting seemed to be, and faster yet when my friend Kelly and I timidly approached a small parcel of blank canvas and were rebuked by a girl painting on the opposite side. She had big plans.
And so we watched. One guy had taped a copy of a Renoir painting on the wall and was replicating it to an astounding T, while another (as pictured) was delicately constructing a beautiful geisha pulled up on his phone. But there were lots of other images as well. Graffiti, text, cartoons, Pollock-inspired splatters, hearts, stick figures—they were all there, and they often built upon one another. Any form of stylistic hierarchy was stripped in favor of collaborative creativity, which, to our surprise and intrigue, was whited out by nightclub staff upon completion in order to clear room for new painters. Masterpieces gone in seconds.
As horrified as I was to see the geisha go (“but how could they do that, Kelly??!”), it was therapeutic. And painting a temporary image myself was even more so. With Biggie blaring and paint pouring, there remains no better place to create with friends and hurdle the midweek doldrums of monotonous 9 to 5 work life. I’ll be there again next week. Will you? (RSVP ahead of time here: http://templesf.com/calendar#11-09.)
