Chalk Art

Today I experienced a new kind of art, Chalk Art!!

In order to prepare for the upcoming Chalk Art Festival in Larimer Square (this upcoming weekend, >200 artists) in Downtown Denver we did a promotional piece out at Denver International Airport. We had 10 rmcad peeps and 10 professional artists all "chalking" a 12x40 piece of pavement on the runway at Southwest Airlines. Our piece went between C41 and C42, so if you're at DIA in the next couple of days, go check it out!

I love the idea of chalk art,it takes 15 of us collaborating for 5ish hours on one giant piece, all while knowing that what we are working so hard on is temporary. Today, with clouds looming not too far from us, our art could have been as temporary as 2 hours. But we were all ok with that, that is the beauty of chalk art. Those who are around, helping, watching, get to experience the works. You have to pay attention in the moment because if you go back the next day or possibly even the next hour, there is the chance that the art will be gone; washed away by sleet, rain or hail...

It was pretty awesome being on the tarmac at DIA. except that now I know how animals feel at the zoo. We were just out doing our thing all day long and people would come to the windows up above and tap on them and wave and take pictures, try to make us do tricks, bribe us with food, etc. It was a loud, hot day of being on display, but our awesome finished product rocked!

There were a few madonnari with us today. Madonnari are professional chalk artists. Most of the work I have seen from madonnari have been crazy awesome. Even today, our local madonnari were masters of color, shading, blending. One madonnari, Julian Beever, makes $20,000 per day doing huge chalk art pieces for grand openings (i.e. apple), private parties, huge events, international chalk art festivals. Check out his work (link below). One of my favorites is a piece called waterfall (1st link). Julian is known for doing 3d pieces, amazing works that really take you to a different place. You have to stand in a specific point to fully feel like the work is 3d.

http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/waterfall.html

http://users.skynet.be/J.Beever/pave.htm

I fly out of DIA in one week, I fully intend on going to check out our tribute to Denver. If there haven't been any major storms, I bet it will still be there. But who knows....

**update** our videographer just put up a time lapse of our work yesterday on youtube, check it out!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYFq1fAjd6s