The first night Spokane protested the killing of George Floyd, Shawn Heale, Garageland owner, stood outside the bar, offering protestors water or a spot to wash their eyes out if they had been tear-gassed. When Heale realized this would go on more than one night, he decided to board up his windows.

“The place looks so sad with boards on the windows, and it makes it seem like it’s a scarier time than it needs to feel like,” Heale said. “We had the idea – because we have so many artists that come in and paint cool stuff on the inside – that we would just give everyone a chance at once to paint cool stuff on the outside for people to see as they walked by.”

Four of the six boards were reserved for Black artists because “ this is the time that they need to have the space to be heard.” The remaining two anyone can paint on, and when it’s over, Garageland, located at 230 W. Riverside Ave., will auction off those boards and donate the money to Black Lives Matter. Heale will leave it up to the Black artists what they want done with their boards.

You don’t have to be an artist with a capital A to participate, either.

“I would just rather anyone that has something to say positively about this movement, or a positive thing to say during these times, to come down and say it,” Heale said. “You want your kid to do something positive and have them come down and just scribble a little bit, something like that. We’re welcoming everyone that wants to be a part of this.”

Part of this project stemmed from Heale thinking about where we are in history.

“This is going to be taught at school,” Heale said. “Our kids, they’re going to learn about this stuff, and I don’t want to look my kid in the eye and say that I just stood around and didn’t do anything because I was uncomfortable.”

Garageland opened at reduced capacity when Spokane went into Phase 2 of the state’s reopening plan, but Heale had to make a hard decision. His regular doorman fell into the high risk category, and Heale decided he shouldn’t return to work.

“I’ve been doing the door pretty much ever since we reopened,” Heale said.

Heale has dealt with a bit of frustration from customers when he doesn’t allow groups larger than five.

“We tried sitting them at different tables and seeing if that would work, but it hasn’t really, they keep trying to just congregate in the same place,” Heale said. “It’s a bit frustrating, but with that I completely understand where everyone’s coming from. People miss being in bars with their friends, you know?”