Teacher, We Want to Draw!

Chapter 2: The First Version

I asked June about the sketch while Mara was outside mixing a new batch of gray.

"Did you draw this?"

June kept her eyes on the wall. "I drew a lot of versions."

"When?"

"Last fall. Before we started the ferry proposal."

"You drew this before we had the contract?"

"Yes."

I took the paper off the wall and held it near the mural. The lines did not match exactly. The drawing was rough, done in charcoal and pencil, but the tide curve turned in the same place and doubled back in the same narrow loop.

"Where did you get the idea?"

June finally looked at me. "The maps in the archive room. The old ferry logs. The shape of the shoreline."

"I was using those, too."

"I know."

There was no accusation in her voice. That made the answer worse.

I laid the sketch back on the table. "Why didn't you tell me the curve was yours?"

"I didn't think it was mine anymore after you changed it."

"That isn't how it works."

"I thought it was."

From the doorway, Mara said, "We're both good at thinking the studio's rules are obvious."

She had returned with a bucket of gray paint. She looked from June to me and set the bucket down.

"Were you going to show her the sketch?" I asked.

"June asked me not to."

June's cheeks colored. "I didn't ask you not to. I said I wasn't ready."

Mara gave a short laugh. "That's not the same thing?"

I looked at them both. For months, I had told myself the apprenticeship was simple. They learned by watching. They were paid for their time. Their work appeared in the mural because I selected and guided it. That was how it had worked in the studios where I learned.

It had also been how other people's ideas ended up under someone else's signature.

"Is this about the café?" I asked Mara.

"It's about the fact that you have a contract and a signature on the door," she said. "June and I do the work, and our names go on a sheet in the back office."

"That's not fair."

"Then make it fair."

I couldn't do that while standing on a scaffold, with a review team coming the next day and a contract in my desk that named me as the lead artist. I could have said all of that. Instead, I heard myself say, "Let's talk after the review."

Mara lifted the gray bucket and climbed back up.

The review team arrived at ten. Two representatives from the Bellwether Arts Trust came with the ferry hall's project manager, Daniel Price. They spent twenty minutes studying the wall, asking about the copper lines and the places where the old ferry route crossed the new shoreline.

I answered the questions. Mara and June stayed on the scaffold, painting while the three visitors talked below us.

"Is that whole left section yours?" one of the Trust representatives asked, pointing to the broad sweep of blue.

"It's my design," I said. "The team is helping me execute it."

Mara's brush stopped.

The project manager glanced up at the scaffold. "And the team is?"

"Mara Venn and June Bell," I said. "They're my apprentices."

The word sounded too small once I had said it.

"Apprentices," the representative repeated. She wrote something on her clipboard. "That's useful to know."

"It's a collaborative studio," I added. "We work closely."

Mara resumed painting. June didn't.

After the visitors left, I found them on the floor packing up their tools.

"I should have described the work more carefully," I said.

Mara tightened the lid on a jar of brushes. "You said what you meant."

"I meant that I designed the mural."

"I know."

"I also meant that the two of you contributed to it."

"Then say that next time."

June rolled her sleeve down over a paint mark. "The Trust is looking at our hours, too. They asked Daniel how many people were working on the wall."

"I heard."

"Will they ask for our names?"

"They might."

"And what will you tell them?"

I had no prepared answer. The contract's credit section named me as the artist. It allowed me to list assistants in the project records, but it didn't require the Trust to put their names on the wall plaque.

"I can ask for a change," I said.

Mara gave me a look I couldn't read. "You can."

She put on her jacket and walked out. June followed, carrying the sketch with her.

I went to my office and read the contract again. I had read it enough times to know where every clause sat, but I still found myself looking for a sentence that would tell me what I owed the women working beside me.

The document said the design had to be original. It said I was responsible for the work. It said the Trust owned the finished mural after payment.

It said nothing about what happened when the line between "my design" and "their work" had started to blur.