Bubble Wrap

At around 10 AM on the morning of March 1st that coincided on a Monday, I received a message from Chloe asking me if I was available on short notice to lend her a helping hand. Since I had no classes and nothing inflexible planned for the day, I quickly changed and made my way to the studio.

When the elevator door opened into her studio, I found her large paintings placed front and center in the room while Chloe was rolling out a long train of bubble wrap and taping it around a canvas nearly as tall as her! She explained that she was wrapping the works that were dry because they would be transported to the gallery in a day or two. The blue paintings were still upstairs, taking their own sweet time to dry. It was a messy process that involved a particularly stubborn roll of duct tape and lots of temptingly poppable bubble wrap!

Together, we formed a system where I would stand behind the canvas to tape the bubble wrap to the wooden frame structure while she tucked the bubble wrap over and under the canvas and wrapped it around the sides as well. Our roles changed depending on the canvas we were wrapping and the space we had to move in. After about 3 hours, there were multiple canvases leaning against each other downstairs, wrapped and ready to go.

She led me upstairs to see if some of the blue paintings were dry. Most of them were somewhat still wet in certain areas, even though Chloe had made sure to set the AC to a specific drying mode. We took a while to wrap two large (dry) paintings and delicately maneuver ourselves and the canvas down the narrow flight of stairs so as not to hit the ceiling.

I was surprised to find that Chloe preferred to sign behind the canvas instead of somewhere on the front (since I had only ever seen it done that way).

Chloe is also a practicing art therapist and Mondays are one of her busiest days where she had many clients lined up. She was pleased that we had finished wrapping what could be wrapped within the 4 hours she had allotted for it in her schedule. We left the studio close to 2:30 PM and walked together to the closest mall where she generously bought me a chocolate brownie and a cup of coffee before heading to her office.