The Taco Bell Drawing Club

At four o’clock on a recent Wednesday, the artist and illustrator Jason Polan was sitting at a table at the Taco Bell on Fourteenth Street, just west of Union Square, his black roller-ball pen poised above a small drawing pad. At thirty-six, Polan still resembles a high schooler. He was wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt, glasses, and an orange baseball cap. Originally from suburban Michigan, he has been in New York since 2004, pursuing commercial work for brands like Uniqlo (a pocket tee printed with contented-seeming giraffes, a tote bag adorned with a pretzel pattern), alongside grander projects. He has resolved to draw every person in New York City, and maintains a blog where he posts quick, nimble sketches of civilians and celebrities tooling around. (“When the project is completed we’ll all have a get together,” he promises on the site.) He has also drawn every piece of art on display at MoMA (twice).

In 2005, Polan established the Taco Bell Drawing Club, which he hosts once a week. Artists and laymen—most of them Polan’s friends and social-media followers—gather at the fast-food restaurant to sketch and talk. Charter get-togethers can happen anywhere. “If you draw at a Taco Bell, you’re a member,” Polan said. “I can give you a card.” Opening his wallet, he produced a laminated card that read, “Official Member, Taco Bell Drawing Club.” He went on, “There are no rules. I often draw people, but you can draw whatever you want.” Polan sipped a large Mountain Dew and took in the restaurant. Its blue-and-orange walls were decorated with graffiti-ish art that incorporated the words “Taco Bell.” Its tables were mostly populated by solitary diners, from all walks of life.

Polan chose to draw there, he said, because it reminded him of his home town, where a manager at the restaurant chain was always nice to his family. “Her name was Sue,” he said, bobbing his head to a Shawn Mendes song that was playing on the sound system.

People began arriving. Hayden Bennett, who runs the Web site for the magazine The Believer, has been a member since 2013. “The concept is so, like, silly that it’s inviting and unpretentious,” he said. He pulled out a drawing pad and began sketching stick figures. “I totally can’t draw, but this provides a way to focus on doing one thing, which is nice.”

Brett Fletcher Lauer, a poet, opened his messenger bag and removed a hunk of resin with a beetle in it. “I went to the Evolution Store and got some gifts for my niece and nephew, so I got this,” he said, placing it on the table. “I’m going to try to draw it.” This was his second time at the drawing club. “I’m not at all an artist,” he said. “It’s just a meditative practice, and a good way to not be on your phone.”

“Did I hear someone say something about getting off your phone?” Polan asked, hopefully.

“There are apps that shut down your Internet access,” Bennett said, while attempting to sketch Polan’s profile.

Polan sighed. “I’d probably just override those apps,” he said.

More club members arrived: Ariel Klein, an artist; Lisa Noschese, a nursing student; her brother Alex Noschese, a video editor; and Marlowe, Alex’s eleven-month-old daughter. Polan found a larger table. “Sometimes they get mad here if there are too many people,” he said, looking around nervously. Not every manager is like Sue. (Reached by phone last week, Matt Prince, a spokesman for Taco Bell, called himself “a big fan of Jason, and of what he brings to the Taco Bell community.” He said that the club was a place to find inspiration. “Like a park bench, but inside of a restaurant that serves amazing Mexican-inspired food.”)

Talk turned to club members’ menu preferences. “The hard-shell taco is my favorite,” Bennett said.

“Taco Bell only has, like, two things— hard things and soft things,” Polan said. “That’s my theory.”

“I like the Doritos Locos taco,” Lauer said. “I dreamed about it when I was younger, before they had it: What if there were a hard taco made with Dorito flavoring?”

“You were a visionary!” Bennett said.

Lisa Noschese held up her pad, on which she’d sketched a grinning taco. (She had ordered a chalupa.)

“A lot of people draw what they eat,” Polan said. “We get a lot of drawings of burritos.”

Klein had drawn a fish on a skateboard. Alex Noschese was working on some abstract shapes. Marlowe, sitting on his lap, jabbed at a piece of paper with an orange crayon. “Ma-ma-ma!” she said.

“Look, she’s a member now,” her father said. ♦

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