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| Owned
and operated by women, one of the slogans for the company Women Who Paint
(WWP) is, “We love to paint!” Sporting white painter’s
pants of varying lengths, I interviewed five WWP employees on-site in
between painting jobs. Their passion for their work is reflected in their
animated conversation, their educational backgrounds, and their variety
of clients. These are the WWP painters sharing their thoughts: Owner Kristol Jaskul, Dawn Maggio, Kristie Combs, Kim Albrecht, and Val Ivy. “About 85% of our work is interior (walls and ceilings) painting,” says Kristol. “We specialize in high-quality painting and only use brushes and rollers, not sprayers.” With over 12 years of interior painting experience, most of these WWP women have art backgrounds, which they say enhances their appreciation of color. “Color is emotional,” says Kristie. Their educational backgrounds range from art education (Dawn), to a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree (Kim), to interior design (Kristol and Kristie). Armed with expertise in the arts, they engage in both the art and science of painting. These painters say they are attentive to clients’ needs and wants in that WWP responds to the client as opposed to telling them what they should do. Says Kristol, “In addition to the painters, I work with three interior designers who give me input, but clients have the last word. We will paint your whole home white if that’s what you want, but we will try to convince you to use a little color, at least a warm neutral as opposed to a more cold white.” When I ask what other types of interior painting they do, everyone chimes in. “We paint murals,” says one. “We do stenciling (a perforated pattern),” says another. “We can do a full wall or a small piece of a wall,” another chimes in. “We can take an image and blow it up and then paint it. Or we can do freehand, draw it out, and then blow it up (using graph paper).” “We do faux techniques, which gives the appearance of texture,” says a fourth. “The wall is a canvas.” The WWP women also paint decoratively, such as employing Tompe L’oeil (two-dimensional images that look three-dimensional). Their interior specialties include faux, ceilings, doors and baseboards, and windows and cabinets. They do all of the prep work necessary to complete the job, such as removing wallpaper. I could see while talking to them that they feel painting is clearly an art form. As a science, the painting revolves around tools and timing, planning and teamwork. Kristol’s role as owner includes managing jobs, making client contacts, giving color consultations, estimating, and building relationships. “Kristol e-mails us and says, ‘This is the plan for the week,’ says Kristie, who has known Kristol the longest of all the employees. “Each of us shows up at the appointed time and place, must wear painter’s pants, and bring some of our own painting tools. Kristol brings the supplies—the paint, the drop cloths, and any special equipment we’ll need.” One special tool that each painter carries is at least a “five-in-one,” which Dawn shows me. It has five different tools, including a scraper and a screwdriver. Val has a “15-in-one,” says Kim, which includes a Phillips screwdriver. WWP serves the Boulder County area, mostly taking jobs within the Boulder/Longmont/Northglenn/North Denver radius. They’ve painted everything from a 1901 farmhouse upgrade to a large brand-new home. Interior paint jobs range in size from 900 to 10,000 square feet. Some of their jobs require preparation work prior to the painting, such as removing wallpaper. Dawn tells me, “When hung properly, wallpaper comes off easily. In this house built in 1975, fortunately the wallpaper was hung properly and we’ve just removed it.” Sometimes they need to remove a window covering and frame prior to painting. On this particular job, two of the painters removed a heating cover and found leakage into the house frame, which they reported to the owner. They say precision is critical to their high quality of work. “You have to have good eye-hand coordination to do, say, a ceiling cut well,” says Dawn. Seeing a puzzled look on my face, she explains further, “You know, where the wall meets the ceiling. And it’s an illusion: if the wall and ceiling line isn’t straight, we have to paint it so that it looks straight when one sees it.” Kristie adds, “If you don’t have a (steady) hand, you can’t work here.” “They work well as a team,” says Kristol, “and help out one another. It’s a very physical type of work, so it’s not for everyone.” They seem to work well together, and claim that they are also skilled and productive workers. For all of these painters, their jobs are their main source of income. Hours of work vary: some days they work four hours and some days they just work “until the job is done.” Says Kristie, “Sometimes the job requires more than expected—like a wall that absorbs more paint than expected. Then we’ll have to put another coat of paint on it.” Satisfaction in their work is somewhat different for each painter, but all of them find a great deal of satisfaction from an appreciative client—“from feeling like I’ve helped improve someone’s environment, helping to create a space that makes a client feel happy,” one of the women says. For several of the painters, the stress level is low because of the freedom in the work—the physical freedom and the lack of routinely structured hours. Also satisfying is working project to project, with a beginning and an end. They all agree that the final product is the most satisfying. They also derive satisfaction from learning new skills, enjoying the team, and expressing their ideas. From an environmental perspective, WWP painters are also satisfied with their commitment to environmental issues by using Benjamin Moore low- to no-VOC paint (without formaldehyde) upon the request of the client. Also satisfying, they say, is their commitment and attention to detail. Painters with WWP are proud of the work they do and how they do it. “Maybe it’s because we’re women,” says Kim. “We give great attention to detail. There aren’t many painting companies who vacuum their area when they’re done. The only thing we leave behind is the paint on the wall.” For further information, go to www.womenwhopaint.com, or contact Kristol Jaskul at 303-549-3133. You can also e-mail her at kristolj@earthlink.net. |
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