Disaster Averted

Late yesterday I got a phone call from Molly, one of the artists in our Studio.  Other than a brief chat at Herb's Memorial Service last week, haven't seen or heard from her since the spring semester ended.  The call was regarding a potential problem in our space.  Said she had been working (producing product for Jackie, who is also the third artist in our space) when she heard what sounded like a heavy dripping.  Looking up, she noticed something, including part of the ceiling bulging.  We've had some unusual weather lately, including occasionally heavy rainstorms, and she was concerned that perhaps a massive amount to water had found a path into our ancient building and was about to enter our Studio space.  Would not be the first time we'd have a flood, though the last time was because of underground town pipes.  She reported it to to people running the building, and then let me know about it.  One bit of good news was that it was on the other side of the room, away from my table and prints.

Since I had some errands to do today anyway, seemed a good idea to work my way up to Ocean Grove and see the situation for myself.  The building was fairly empty- not many tags up on the hooks.  From the top of the stairs I turned on the basement light, and saw no flooding yet.  Always good.  Descended and turned on more lights, still no standing water.  No water coming from under our door into the hallway- another good sign.  Unlocked the door and went inside.  No standing water anywhere.  The only unusual sight was a large canvas drop cloth/tarp draped from the press to the cabinet by the wall, in the area where Molly had noticed issues.  Again, no standing water or continuing drips, but a bunch of peeled paint and plaster dust on the floor around the press.

Above the press no bulging ceiling, but something had been cut, probably the source of the debris on the floor.  No tags for the Kelly Boys were up, but I had seen one for Little Bobby Duncan, and heard music coming from his space, so went to go see if he knew anything.  He had not been present when this was happening yesterday, but got the story from Mike, another person who does some work for the building.  It seemed that there was a problem with the air conditioner in the classroom above ours, and instead of draining properly, the water generated was leaking down into the basement.  I showed him the current state of my space.  His guess was that the air conditioner had been moved (or its drain  fixed), which seemed to have relieved the worst of the problem.

So no immediate crisis to deal with.  I'm assuming the ladder and tarp were left in place for now and will be cleaned up when the ceiling is patched- I guess next week.  If I had something to work on it seemed the area around my table was fine, but I had no project to work on today, so I locked up, stopped in Belmar to pick up the money coming to me for my additional student, and headed home.  Later I gave Molly a call and an update on what I had learned today.