Confessions of a Teenage Face Painterby Barrie Sher
My senior year at Brittany (9th grade), I elected to take an art class. I surmise advanced physics must have been filled. The class was taught be a Mr. Tom Lawless, and held in the basement of the school, far away from the high traffic areas of the first and second floors. The nicest guy in our art class was Marshall Kleiman. Marshall never caused any trouble and never bothered anyone. He was always in a good mood and was just an all around good guy. This could not be tolerated. When Mr. Lawless would leave the class, a group of about six of us would escort (carry) Marshall to the bathroom, which was adjacent to the art room. Once there, we would take artistic license with Marshall’s face. Depending on the day, we painted different themes. Monday was The Indian (war paint), Tuesday was Frankenstein (stitches on his forehead and neck where he had brain surgery: not Marshall, but Frankenstein), Wednesday was Bozo The Clown (circles around the eyes and a big smile on the mouth), Thursday was The Mustache (the Groucho look). If we were pressed for time, it was just cat whiskers. On Friday, we rested. The face painting had its benefits. After every episode Marshall would immediately look in the mirror, shriek, "doult!" and then spent five minutes washing his face. The upshot: he never had one zit the entire year. He had the smoothest complexion at Brittany, including the girls and the wrestlers. Granted, this was immature and childish. But we only did this for one reason: we were immature and childish. What can you expect after watching hundreds of hours of The Three Stooges? Everything seemed to be going well. I had earned a solid “C” in art class. This would definitely bring my GPA up. Then came the eventful day we did sculpture. The assignment for the day was to sculpt something out of plaster of paris. After much contemplation, Irv and I decided to make a rock. Not just any rock, but a large, gray one. Perhaps we could put it in a box and sell it as a pet? What a stupid idea. Who would ever buy that? In order to sculpt our masterpiece, we had to mix the plaster of paris, which was in powder form. Mr. Lawless explained the directions: mix one part plaster of paris powder with four parts water. Somehow, not being chemistry majors, Irv and I got confused and mixed about 6 parts powder with one part water. As we were in the process of mixing, someone shouted that it was time to paint Marshall. Whenever we heard this call to arms, we dropped whatever we were doing, which was usually nothing, and headed for the boys bathroom with Marshall in tow, horizontally. While we were in the bathroom expressing our creativity with Marshall's face, the "quick setting" plaster of paris hardened all over the sink. The hot and cold faucets, the drain, the drain board, everything was entombed in a thick layer of what now could officially be classified as "concrete". The Three Stooges would have been proud. As luck would have it, Mr. Lawless returned to class just as Irv and I returned to the sink. When he looked into the sink, he had difficulty speaking as his faced morphed from pink to red to purple. He looked like a thermometer that had just been thrown into boiling water. Mr. Lawless disappeared for a minute. (Wasn't this the problem in the first place?) He brought two hammers and two chisels and said, "get to work. I want every bit of this cleaned up." Irv and I started chipping away, but we weren’t making much progress. The “concrete” wouldn’t budge. Mr. Lawless grabbed my chisel and hit it with all his power. A little chip the size of a fingernail was removed. I thought we were going to be there for weeks. We chiseled for thirty minutes, and finally Mr. Lawless said, "get out of here." Irv and I headed for our next class, Industrial Arts, aka shop class. We needed a filler class before P.E., and what better way to loosen up than shop class. The teacher was Mr. Birkhead, a no nonsense guy. If my ability in art was pathetic, my ability in Industrial Arts was even worse because of one factor: it could be dangerous. The class book should have been “The Yellow Pages”. Just tell us whom to call. Mr. Birkhead said, "what are you guys doing here?" We told him that Mr. Lawless kept us after class. He told us to go back to Mr. Lawless and get a note. With much trepidation, we went back to the scene of the grime. Mr. Lawless kept shaking his head as he feverishly scribbled a note, "These guys made a mess." We took it to Mr. Birkhead, who immediately rejected it because it didn't explain why we were late. We would have to, once again, return to see our favorite art teacher, Mr. Lawless. Fearing bodily harm, we went back to Mr. Lawless, who, upon seeing us again, fumed, "what do I have to do to get rid of you guys?" He then wrote a more cryptic note, "These guys made a BIG mess." *** Twenty years later, I'm building a nursing home and retirement center in St. Louis County. I submit my building plans to the county for review and I get back a nine page letter detailing their voluminous, costly and time-consuming demands for revisions. So I figured I'd take a trip to Clayton to educate those people about nursing home construction. Much to my surprise (shock), I was led into the office of none other than...the human canvass...Marshall Kleiman. An urge to face paint suddenly overwhelmed me. However, it looked as if Marshall had been lifting weights for about eight hours a day since 9th grade. His days of being a still life were definitely over. We quickly got down to business.
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