The Freemasonry of the Brush

 

Sitting, sipping coffee and reading a book, in a warm house with a cold, sun-sharp windy April afternoon blowing and glaring outside, with nowhere I need to go and nothing I need to do, feeling truly at home for the first time in years. Not visiting, not commuting, not counting down the days until the next slog up 95 and the long groaning churn of the ferry ride across Nantucket Sound, but simply living, secure and settled. Back to work again on Monday, after the long Easter weekend, but that’s fine. It’s work I know and even enjoy. The ease with which I slipped into this new painting crew, side by side with the gang of tough old carpenters, surprised me a little. I always knew that painting houses was a trade I could take up anywhere, but this is more than a job. The building trades have their own lively Freemasonry, and it’s as effortless to talk about favorite brushes(we all favor Wooster) and despised “luxury” paint brands (I’m looking at you, Farrow & Ball) as it was to chat about point-of-view or image patterning with a friendly stranger in an MFA dining hall.

The world of the construction site is so familiar, with the universal tang of sawdust, the tangled snakes of power cords, the grinding saws, and the bad music, that it hardly seems like you’ve come to a new place at all. Even the characters remain the same: the seldom-seen but exigent GC; the strutting and hilariously self-important architect,  the demanding but oblivious owners; the same fuck-ups and epic stories of fuck-ups past. There’s the inevitable cabinet maker with OCD, the painter with the drinking problem, the landscaper waiting for his green card. We all understand each other, we’ve all been there and we’re all still here. I feel like I could join a crew in Athens or Tokyo or Helsinki and it would be the same. It’s a fraternity and you have to earn your place in it. The quiet look of approval the first time you cut a ceiling or glaze a window tells you what you most want to know – not that you can do the job, but that you’re welcome to the club. You’ve already paid the dues, in spilled paint and broken panes of antique glass, in the twenty-hour weekends ahead of the furniture or the floor guys, in the all-nighters under the halogens to get that final check before Christmas.

It’s nothing special – just another day on the job. We’re all in it for the long haul, picking up where we left off, stripping it off to put it back on, finishing the job, and starting the next one. It’s a living, and surprisingly, I realize after more than thirty years,  it’s a life.