Ruben Marcilla paints the ice at Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena on January 10, 2010. Photo courtesy of Spokane Regional Convention & Visitors Bureau.

Millions of television viewers will catch a glimpse Ruben Marcilla's handiwork. Thousands of audience members will see it in person. Dozens of famous names will dance across it. But few people will know the name of the man behind the logos painted onto the ice at the Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena.

And Marcilla is fine with that. "My 15-minutes of fame has stretched into more like two hours," he says, laughing.

Marcilla is the last of a dying breed. A true artist whose brush strokes adorn the ice at Spokane Chiefs hockey games as well as the fence line at Avista Stadium during the Spokane Indians' baseball season. "I'm a dinosaur," he says. "Nowadays, everything's painted by machine. I'm old-school-- have-brush-will-travel."

But he's no stranger to high profile jobs. He painted the ice when Spokane hosted the Memorial Cup in 1998 and again when the city hosted the 2007 National Figure Skating Championships.

Last Sunday, Marcilla spent seven hours crafting the Smucker's logo as well as the 2010 U.S Figure Skating logo and the Visit Spokane image, too. "It took three different reds!" he says.

But first the folks at the Arena had to prepare his canvas. Marcilla says, "Making ice is big, involved process. First they whitewash the concrete floor with a mixture of chalk and water. Everything has to be biodegradable and environmentally-friendly."

After the concrete is whitewashed a thin layer of water is allowed to freeze on top of it. Then it's time for Marcilla and his team-- usually his girlfriend and his daughter.

"We paint the logos, then they flood the Arena with more layers of ice and smooth it out with the Zamboni," he says.

He's learned there's a difference between hockey ice and figure skating ice. Hockey players prefer thinner layers of super cold ice. "It's faster," Marcilla says. But figure skaters need warmer, considerably thicker ice. "So they can dig in and do all those tricks," he explains.

Painting the ice for an event of this magnitude takes extra time and care. "Once you paint the ice, it's over," Marcilla says. "There's no way to clean it up except to scrape it off and mistakes like that will show."

Working from enlarged templates, he painstakingly began to paint. He started shortly after 1 p.m. and finished after 8 p.m. "It's more about getting it done right than getting it done fast," he says. "Kinda like defusing a bomb-- you take your time."

He didn't seem to mind either the glacial cold or glacial pace of the job. "I'm a perfectionist," he says. "I take great pride in my craft and my trade."

For Marcilla sign painting isn't just a vocation-- it's more of a calling. In fact he says, "I graduated from high school in 1975 and I've never had a 'real' job. I've just been a sign painter. It's what I do. It gives my life purpose."

So when millions of viewers watch Sasha Cohen skip across the ice, her blades digging in just above the U.S. Figure Skating logo, most won't give the red, white and blue swirls a second thought.

But for Ruben Marcilla those vibrant colors are a sign of a job well-done.

"I say I've never worked a day in my life," he says. "I'm blessed. I'm one of those people who love what they do."

 

 

 

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