by opinions editor Elise Sawyer and staff reporter Myla Cathey

Parking spot painting, a school tradition which allows participating students to express their creative talents through customizing spaces reserved for their cars, has overtaken more of the campus than ever before. Despite a significant decrease in on-site students; the amount of parking spots sold has increased this semester by almost sixty spaces.

While the painting days were scheduled and planned, students worked to finalize their designs to reflect their personalities. Junior Genna Guerra decided to treat her spot as a warm-up for her first year in art.

“I love the beach very much, and I wanted to do something fun and happy,” Guerra said. “I knew I wanted to do something more [on] the intricate side of things.” 

Under the pressure of designing one of the almost two hundred reserved spaces in the student lot, sophomore Jadyn Warner was determined to make her parking spot unique.

“Being creative is really important, because nobody really wants to see something that’s  in every single row of the parking lot,” Warner said. “I felt like I wanted to do something a little bit branched out.”

During these unprecedented times, PTO vice president Jennifer White needed to adapt the painting day’s schedule and procedure to fit the time constraints of the students.

“Saturday was the main day [for painting], and Sunday was initially meant for any athletes that could not make it Saturday,” White said. “This year, we ended up being outside five different times over two weekends.”

Despite the added precautions, the painting days– where the designs are finally moved from concept to car space– are White’s favorite.

“As exhausting as the heat is, it is fun to see the fruits of your labor,” White said. “This year was especially rewarding, since we sold every spot in the main area of the lot except a few along the softball field.”

During the hours-long sessions, the painters’ original design ideas were tested, and many proved difficult to execute. Guerra had worries about making mistakes while painting, but through careful brush strokes, she was able to avoid error.

“It was kind of difficult [to paint the palm tree] because such a dark color on all those light colors [means] if you mess up, you’ve messed up the entire thing,” Guerra said. “ I just had to go slow and make sure I didn’t smear any black paint.”

Warner needed to alter her original design featuring full lemons, although she ended up liking her new plans more.

“Originally I wanted it to be whole lemons on there, and we realized kind of quickly it was a little bit unrealistic,” Warner said. “I realized that I could do slices, so I was really excited about that.”

Cooperation with family and friends was part of the reason painting was so enjoyable for Warner.

“It was really nice because they were able to help me, and it was just a fun thing to do together,” Warner said. “Next to me, across from me, catty-corner on all sides were my close friends, and so we all had spots next to each other.”

White enjoys being a part of parking lot painting, as it lets students enjoy being creative.

“I love how inviting and fun our parking lot looks,” White said. “I know many people that just like to drive through to see what all the students have done.”

For Guerra, painting day was a nice event to help her prepare for the new school year.

“It was a lot of fun seeing all my friends I hadn’t seen for a while,” Guerra said. “It was definitely a relief to get back into some of that normalcy.”