The forecast predicted sun and a high of minus seventeen. In our houses, we pulled on long underwear over our underwear, a grey long sleeve, a neon poofy vest, and over that an oversized hand-me-down jacket. In our rooms, we pulled on three shirts — two cotton, one wool — from the closet, zipped up three jacket layers consecutively — fleece, athletic, insulated. We wrapped the lavender-green infinity scarf our sibling crocheted last spring around our necks, and pulled our hats over our ears.

Dirt-snow islands piled up behind the city square rink; the ice surface was clear. James Arthur played from the speakers. Cups of super-chain tea warmed our hands —Earl Grey with one milk, Apple Cinnamon, English Breakfast, Orange Pekoe, large, medium, small, medium. Across the street was the 24//7 convenience and a two-storey hardware store. Down the street was the cemetery and the block of buildings that housed our studio.

In our studio on Asquith Street, our desk light was still on where we were working. By the window were the studio’s resident plants: six small pot succulents, a six-feet fig tree nicknamed David, and Gaofushuai, the plant ghost. Gaofushuai was a ming aralia we had acquired from a friend who had rescued it from a hardware store interior. In the months the studio was closed, we came back to the husk of its happy self. We attempted to resuscitate it with considerable effort for it to regrow one green shoot, then die again, this time with finality. Gaofushuai’s demise was unavoidable; our friend left it outside on a brisk fall night and it was plant ghost by morning without ever encountering us. Or, we overwatered it to ghost within the month. On the outside window ledge, pigeons and squirrels faced off.

We received an email from administration pushing up the deadline on two backgrounds we were currently painting, and an order for more. It had been the pace of things for the last few years. Many of our colleagues had quit. Our studio had trouble retaining anyone past a few months. Most of us had been at Asquith Street for less than a year.

“I can work this weekend.”

“So can I.”

 “I’ll stay late tonight.”

We nodded our heads. We believed in our ability and our singularity and our work. Our studio was renowned for bringing backgrounds to life, the kind that you can walk into, live in, get dressed in. For every painting the process was different, but once the final detail of the work was completed, the painting took on corporeality.

To paint a comfy living room interior, we would set the walls in broken colour patches instead of solid monochrome, then block out the major shelving and furniture from back to front, the staircase going to an upper floor on the top right corner, or a front door with entryway rug. We would frame the window on the left side, decide on the time of day, the angle of the light entering, warm light and cool shadow or cool light and warm shadow, the light hitting the folds and edges of the blankets and cushions on the sofa, the spines of six paperbacks on a high shelf, the solitary brass floor lamp. When we painted in the last detail of the framed portrait on the staircase, or the forgotten mugs from yesterday’s guests, the background came to life. It became a living room you could walk into on a cold winter afternoon, pull on layers of clothes in preparation to go outside to minus seventeen.

*

Our studio in the morning: the blue wallpaper behind the long row of desks, a handmade clock hung above the entryway (the last tenant had been a clockmaker), chest of cabinets and their faded brass handles, in the wastebasket the discarded energy drinks, cups of coffee, tubes of paint squeezed down, in the jars paintbrushes soaking and drying. On the desk were various drawers, sheafs of papers and invoices tucked away, a large candle, a rock collection from Scarborough, a seashell mounted on a wood plaque, graduation photos of children, and on the pin-up board, postcards over the years (mostly mushrooms and finches), a tear-out page from a fashion magazine, paper-clips, a colour swatch, various colour gradients. To their right was a model hand with manoeuvrable fingers, a large framed painting of yellow plums, a glass vase of withered petunias, a square vase of fresh lilies, and a small round mirror at standing eye-level. In front of the desk was a wood spindle chair, an ergonomic wheely chair, a height-adjustable black stool, two milk cartons stacked vertically. There were no vacant desk spaces in the studio.  Next to the window, David had its large ceramic blue pot, next to it was a smaller, vacant ceramic pot (ink-brush bamboo design).

“You look terrible. Are you leaving or just coming in?”
“Just coming in. They want the new year background done by midnight.”
“Didi’s not coming into the studio today. Food poisoning.”
“Wasn’t she off already last week for migraines?”

“I guess I’ll have to stay late again…”

We shook our heads. They had us paint rabbits. Thousands and thousands of rabbits: rabbits curled in on themselves, legs tucked out of sight, rabbits side-profiled, one droopy ear, rabbits running, bounding away, rabbits munching, showing off their large, firm rump, rabbits perplexed, rabbits perplexed behind other rabbits. It was the new year.

After discussing it back and forth among us we decided to leave the eyes of a long-haired rabbit in the left bottom corner unpainted, incompleting the painting. Incomplete, as to save us time and effort, to carve out lives outside of work. Surely no one would notice that the field of rabbits had not come to life, that you could not brush their fur (they would have run away from you anyway). We were running on fumes. The projects kept coming. We wanted to save our colleagues, our hands, our wrists, our backs, that small last remaining part of ourselves.

It’s not like we hadn’t tried other strategies. We had drafted countless respectful emails over the years pleading for sympathy, for understanding, for more staffing, that only ever grew a longer email chain with one level higher in administration. A few years back we had drafted a confrontational email, even tried to threaten work action. That got an urgent round table meeting but we were quickly labelled as the problem. We confronted each other and disagreed. Shouldn’t we go through the official routes of filing a complaint? Isn’t it our constitutional right to strike? We sent emails clarifying that a strike was not what I personally stood for. Shortly after, we left, we were fired, we stayed. This happened more than a couple of times.

*

“They’re really thanking us with $15 coupons? No raise? New year bonus? Nothing?!”

“Coupons to the super-chain coffee in our studio location only…”
“How thoughtful. Won’t have to go far to redeem.”
“We ought to be thankful. It’s better than nothing.”

“…Would I feel less humiliated if it was $20, that’s actually a real bill denomination.”

After the new year rabbit project finals were submitted successfully, restraint became our work standard. We were able to agree at least on this. New work lacked the completed vision we were once proud of, but this way we ensured our studio’s survival. For example, we could no longer walk into our painting of Asquith Street. The work was no longer alive. The skating rink wasn’t a skating rink we could step into; we couldn’t feel that fresh-smooth-zamboni ice feeling; we couldn’t hear James Arthur’s radio hit, or people chatting, their breaths condensing in the winter air; we didn’t need to avoid flocks of diving pigeons when we passed the cemetery. By not painting the red-brown super-chain tea labels, by not painting the shadow of the 24/7 neon hardware store sign, we achieved background painting that was just background. We didn’t owe it, or anything, life.

(We received an email of thanks from administration for your efforts through this unprecedented time.) (When the mail came two weeks later, we opened the individually addressed envelopes to discover two $5 coupons and two $2.50 coupons, for a total of $15, as promised.) (We walked to the super-chain downstairs.) (We threw the coupons in the recycling.) (One coupon couldn’t cover an order of a medium Earl Grey tea with one milk and a donut, and since coupons couldn’t be combined we had to rummage the bottoms of our pockets for change.) (The second time we tried to use a coupon we were told they had expired in April.)

*

We’ve been working on a new painting. No deadline or anything this time. Something we wanted to paint for ourselves. It’s another painting of Asquith Street. The two-storey building — our second floor studio windows visible on the far side (a figure peeps out from the drawn curtains at the commotion downstairs) —takes up three-quarters of the canvas. We’ve painted the red brick exterior with awnings of pigeon shit, and the first floor storefronts and library. We’ve painted the homeless people living on Asquith, sleeping over the vents on the sidewalk for survival. Down the street, we’ve painted steelworkers, garbage and refuse collectors, coroners, librarians marching in a general strike. Below the pigeons, we’ve painted ourselves, holding signs and placards, Didi at the front. We’re dressed for the weather: parkas, jackets, poofy vests, scarves our sibling crocheted. Hesitating before we paint more. The tentative title of the painting is Strike! at Asquith Street Background Painters Association.

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Emily Lu is a poet, translator, and psychiatrist. She lives in Toronto. Website: https://luyueyang.wordpress.com/