Alan and Norm Quirós have had a predilection for drawing for as long as they can remember. Growing up in San Francisco in the 70’s, some of the twins’ earliest memories are of picking up crayons alongside their older brother and scribbling all over the walls of their childhood home near Silver and Mission streets in the Excelsior.
“It was irresistible for me,” said Alan. “I was always picking up a pen and doing something with it and wrecking a wall somewhere.”
Norm says the brothers only stopped drawing on the walls when their dad, who painted landscapes in oils, began bringing industrial-sized reams of paper home from his job at an office supply store.
While their older brother moved onto other interests, the twins’ passion and curiosity for drawing only grew stronger. Over the past 50 years, Alan and Norm have turned art into their careers. The pair will be showcasing their work at the annual Fall Open Studios at 1890 Bryant Street Studios this weekend.
Open Studios at 1890 Bryant St. is one of two opportunities each year for the public to enter the four-story building that houses nearly 100 local artists: painters, photographers, sculptors, jewelers and ceramicists. Visitors can walk through the former mayonnaise factory building, get to know the artists, watch live demonstrations and take home locally-made art.
The brothers say they look forward to the community feel every year.
“It’s nice to have the community come together and do a huge event like this,” said Norm. “We get to see people in the other studios and what they’ve been up to.”
Alan and Norm have been at the Bryant St. studio for over a decade. After living and studying in New York for nearly ten years, Alan returned to the Bay Area in 2014 and moved into his current studio space. Two years later, after returning from a six-year stint in Los Angeles, Norm joined a studio called ‘The Stable,’ just down the hall from his brother. For years the pair worked in separate spaces in the Bryant St. building, but when Alan’s studio-mate left in 2021, they figured they’d try sharing a studio.
The windowless square room with cement walls and 20-foot-tall ceilings is the first space the twins, now in their mid-50s, have shared since they were teenagers.
The brothers have taken up corners on opposite sides of the room. The walls are decorated with their art, mementos from childhood and past jobs. Floor-to-ceiling shelves packed with boxes, folders, and canvases serve as a makeshift wall. Bookshelves on both sides of the room are lined with some of the sci-fi novels they read as children.
“It’s funny because growing up we had our differences and we went our separate ways for a while,” said Norm. “We’re older now, and you’re able to listen to what the other person has to say and not take it personal.”
Norm says the two like to bounce ideas off each other. Even when they were down the hall from each other, they’d get together during lunch to draw and share tips.
Alan says that hasn’t changed much since they’ve moved in together. “I see what he’s liking. He sees what I’m liking and we see how they are different and also how we are similar.”
A lot of their art, the twins say, is inspired by their childhood. When the adults in their extended Colombian family would come together to watch soccer, the kids would scurry off to the next room to tune into shows like Creature Features, watch cult classic horror, Star Trek and sci-fi films.
The Star Wars franchise left an impression on Alan, who says his lifelong love for science fiction inspired his drawings of robot cars in his Trux Garage collection, a reimagining of real and fictional trucks he will be showcasing at Open Studio.
One of his fantasy trucks has mechanical feet instead of wheels; another – a garbage truck– has metal teeth, red eyes and a sign that says ‘feed me.’
Norm draws monsters, otherworldly and sometimes grotesque creatures. He says the inspiration for his “lowbrow, horror-pop surrealism” art comes straight from the horror films he and his brother saw as children.
“You can’t go wrong with monsters. Everybody likes a monster,” he says.
