8.31.2009

Painting lines on life

Well the weekend of painting was an absolute success. Saturday was in an underground garage for a new condo. The Sunday was a 530 am wake up so I could catch the Bathurst night bus at Dundas, which took me to Wilson (just north of the 401) and from there it was all the way to Warden and the 407 to do the lot below. 900 spaces they tell me.


This place was loads of fun, what with the clouds scudding across the sky and my sleep deprived brain contemplating what this land looked like 10, 20, 50 years ago. Undoubtedly some brilliant farmland swallowed up by development. And the spot on the map that is a brown field, just north of the parking lot, is now turning into condos. Wha? I guess some people like walking across a parking lot to work, or like the idea of being right on the edge of the 407 at all times. Not me, but some people just have to rocket to work. Once we finished there we drove clear across to Mississauga to do another condo lot, interesting in its own right because the smaller footprint of the building meant it had to go deeper to fit in all the parking spaces. Something I had never contemplated before.

At the outdoor site the breeze was nice, and the notion of weather added another novelty to the scene. Watching dark clouds looming from the west then moving over us without loosing more than a drop of water was a minor victory each time as we worked to get things done. And as you walk across a vast, empty parking lot, with nothing to see around you but a few buildings, some under construction, and a highway, it gives you time to contemplate what we, as a species, are doing.

The idea of the place is bad. Destroying farmland, sprawl, office parks and highway side condos all ring awful to me, but there was something...engrossing about the setting. Perhaps even enchanting. The buildings were nothing to be amazed by, rectangles of glass and steel, but their aesthetics combined in my mind with the geographic, historical, social and cultural of the place to become something vibrant and pleasant in its own right.

The to-ing and fro-ing as people came into work on a Sunday was another source of interest for me. Some were there before we arrived, leaving after noon, others pulled in and didn't leave, and a few popped by before disappearing 30 minutes later. Yes I was working too, but for me there was something especially unappealing about the idea of coming to this office, in the middle of nowhere, to work on whatever. Maybe if they could open their windows it wouldn't be so bad. It must, after all, be a nice view from the upper floors.

Eventually I'm going to write a few thoughts on the notion and specifics of painting cement. What a peach of a casual job!

No comments:

Post a Comment