ERRANDS AND ODD-JOBS

diary of a busy-body.

THE PAINT SHOP (January 6th, 2023)

The first thing we have to do is take all of the large square wooden floor tiles off of a metal cart and lay them out in neat rows on the ground. Once they are painted, the floor tiles will become the top layer of a stage floor for a Shakespeare play. Which play? I don’t know. I’ve been on break from school and not paying any attention to the big school wide art calendar sizzling somewhere in my overflowing email inbox. We finished unloading the squares into three neat rows going vertically and two extending horizontally. Like a backwards “L” made by a right hand on someone who is looking for a direction to turn and doesn’t know their right from left. I look down at this fake floor on top of a real floor covered in paint streaks and dust from scenic painting assignments of the past, at the lightly colored wood and the evenness of the beveled edges. I think of my friend Maya who is a scene painter in Chicago and who I didn’t say a goodbye too at the last party I went to before I moved to go to the school that hosts this paint shop.

It’s me and one other girl here today and the two of us on this work study crew aren’t trusted to do anything but paint each square with a clear layer topcoat. The head of the scene shop shows us how. Brushes attached to rollers attached to large bamboo polls so we don’t have to bend over but it still kinda hurts our back after 5 minutes. “In firm, out light” he says. “In firm, out light” I say to myself. Not unlike the way I go to parties…