UNDER THE VOLCANO – UPS AND DOWNS IN THE BASEMENT

In Scotland, we are well-used to blending pleasure and pain, hope and despair. It is a national characteristic rooted in climate, religion, football and homemade tattoos. It’s what allows us to derive foreboding from the smile of a child and enjoyment from the teeth of a gale. Somehow, here, it’s always ‘hard tae tell the difference atween laughin an greetin’.

Happily, or possibly sadly, Edinburgh residents living under our own volcano can now indulge in more of this national predeliction by visiting the Basement Bar on Broughton Street, refurbished and revitalised along Mexican lines among which many will feel instantly at home.

In southern and central Mexico, the Dia de los Muertes fuses indigenous and Roman Catholic traditions by celebrating the 24-hour return from Heaven of dead children (angelitos) to their parents on 1 November. It is followed the next day by the return of dead adults to their earthly descendants.

Flowers, candles, food, drink, cigarettes, and confectionery coffins are stacked around domestic altars (ofrendas), and time is spent honouring the departed as families gather to clean graves, play cards, listen to music, and tell stories. This Caledonian-sounding combination of sociability, sugar, alcohol and morbid recollection has been marked in Mexico for centuries, but is now spreading across the United States like wildfire or the singing of 'Auld Lang Syne'.

Marie Atkinson – one of the Edinburgh artists commissioned to work on murals, panels and paintings for The Basement's premises – was responsible for the hand-screen printed candy skull on teal fabric  featured right. Hers too was El Santo – the mysterious masked wrestler or luchador who enjoys an iconic and quasi-religious status in Mexico almost equivalent to our own dear Edinburgh Book Sculptor's.

The Aztec legend of Popocatépetl and Iztaccihuti inspired Taylor Doolan’s depiction of star-crossed lovers (below left). Believing him dead in battle, Iztaccihuti died of a broken heart. Popocatépetl followed suit on discovering her body, cradling it in his arms. They were afterwards transformed by sympathetic but unhelpful gods into mountainous landscape features.

Lydia Honeybone’s ‘Headless Bartender’ portrait (below right) pays tribute to The Basement’s history of lively times and staff’s traditionally even brighter Hawaiian shirts  ... in, um, unfading black and white.

Finally, another death’s head and tickets to a wrestling bout (by the Too Much Fun Club) indicate a matter of Life and Death uniting Mexicans, Scots, and beer drinkers everywhere –  the location of the Ladies and Gents.

The Basement Bar is part of Signature Pub Group, and the commissioning of Edinburgh’s up-and-coming artistic talent in this recent overhaul was, they assert, part of a wider commitment to:

‘... keeping it local, supporting local businesses and contractors as well as visiting vintage fairs for furniture and curios. The aim is that the Basement Bar is to be a home from home allowing it to get in to the hearts and minds of all our customers.’

We’ve only scratched the surface of the new artworks on display here. If you have favourites of your own, or can tease out the background stories to those not covered here, we’d be delighted to hear from you.