Street art - the ChalkFest on Marietta Square, October 2014

Last Saturday, October 11, 2014, we had planned to go to the Fall Festival at the Smith Plantation in nearby Roswell, Georgia, as we have never visited this plantation.  But, the morning sky was very dark and it started to rain lightly.  Instead we decided to go and have lunch at the Australian Bakery, on the Square in Marietta.  When we arrived downtown Marietta the streets were very wet - it must have rained heavily there.  In addition the roads leading to the Square were closed off.  We managed to park and then walked to the Square.  That is when we realized that this was the ChalkFest week-end.

Last year the ChalkFest festival, hosted by the Marietta Museum of Art, had been held in conjunction with the Arts in the Park event during the Labor Day week-end (early September.)  I had written a post on both events, click on Chalk Art in Marietta, dated October 12, 2013, to read it.  We were not aware that this year the festivals were not held together as we were not here on Labor Day.  The sun started coming out and we ate our lunch on a sidewalk table outside the bakery.  From the Australian Bakery we could see the children amusement area.  There was some machine, where the child sits inside an elliptical big thingy and is turned around and around.  I have never seen this machine but I guess this would be fun for kids?  (Click on collage to enlarge.)

This year the Marietta ChalkFest was featuring 40 professional chalk artists from eight US states.  Last year there were only 20 professional chalk artists.  Each artist is sponsored by a business.  The name of the business is inscribed in the street painting as an advertisement for that firm.  On a side road close to the Art Museum was an area reserved for non professional artists, of all ages.  The event started at 10 am on Saturday morning but since it rained, some of the work, mostly the non professional work that had no plastic covering, was washed out.  Work created by professional artist was to be finished on Sunday, by 5 pm, but it rained again on Sunday morning.  I was hoping that the drawings were well shielded so they could be finished.  (The sun came back on Sunday after lunch.)

On Saturday we started walking along the main street around the Square to take a look.  By then the sun was shining brightly and it was around 81 degree F (27 C.)

Some of the artists had placed the model for their chalk art on the pavement.  Of course, because of the delay caused by the rain most of the works were in the starting stages.

Julie Graden is the artist who painted the crow - the two top left-hand pictures above.  I like crow paintings - my blogging friend Stacy of MagicLoveCrow paints some terrific whimsical crows.  On the web site of Julie Graden, click here, she shows also some watercolor paintings, acrylic paintings and more.  She lives in Land O'Lakes, Florida.  Below is a sample of her art.

Stop the Press!! As I was writing the above Sunday afternoon, the sun was shining brightly.  I stopped typing and called my husband "Let's get back to the Square and look at the ChalkFest again!"  He was ready to go, so we drove there (about 8 miles from our house or 12.8 km.)  What a difference a day made - the chalk drawings were about finished.  So we walked around again and I took many pictures.  I'll go back now to the collages that I showed above and find the finished drawings.

Marietta ChalkFest provided a biography of most the chalk artists in attendance.  The bottom left picture above, of the witch with an apple and worm was made by Bridget K. Lyons of Tampa, Florida.  She has been to numerous chalk art festivals.  Below are two more of her street drawings (Courtesy B. K. Lyons.)

The drawing of the girl in a blue dress with long red hair, above, was drawn by Stacey Williams of Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  She is also a children's book illustrator.  Below are some of her chalk art.  (Courtesy S. Williams.)

The drawing below, on the right, of the woman's face was done by Cass Womack, who lives in Tampa, Florida and is originally from Minnesota.

There is a certain amount of distortion by taking photos of the ground, the drawings look better if the photos are taken from some height.  There was a professional photographer at the fest, and he carried a ladder with him.  I asked him to take a picture using my Nikon to see the difference.  You can see the result below.  The photo taken from the ladder is on the bottom of the collage as you may have guessed.

The crowd was larger on Sunday afternoon than on Saturday, and it was warmer too - 83 degree F (28.5 C.)  You can see the photographer on his ladder below and the roll of plastic on the center of the road.  It it starts raining, the large plastic sheet covers all the chalk drawings and is sealed all around it.  Then after the rain, a leaf blower is used to blow the rain away from the plastic sheeting.  (Click on collage to see better.)

On Saturday I saw the beginning of Beth Shistle's owl drawing.  I was pleased to see it finished on Sunday afternoon.  Beth is an award winning artist from DeLand, Florida, who has been participating in chalk art festivals since 2004.  She is a talented artist and also a retired elementary school teacher.  Below on the right are two of her other chalk drawings.

People had brought their children and also their dogs.  I do not take close-ups of children unless authorized but people usually do not mind if I take a quick photo of their dogs - there were some cute ones.

It certainly was a beautiful afternoon.  A Marietta policeman was going around on his electric wheels, and the firemen were carrying their first aid kits in the back of their bicycles.  There was music as well.  A gentleman was playing his guitar.  He told me it was a "resonator" guitar.  I asked him if he could make it sound like Hawaiian music.  He placed the guitar on his knees  and played it in a sliding motion.

Passing by an ice-cream shop, we decided to have some and eat it sitting outside.  The trees did not show much fall color yet.

Then we looked at more chalk art.

Some of the drawings that I had photographed on Saturday were finished and looked great.

The drawings shown on the two top right hand pictures above have been drawn by Anat Ronen, a self-taught artist.  She is based in Houston, Texas and is originally from Israel.  Her website shows her art including murals, both indoor and outdoor, as pictured below (courtesy A. Ronen.)

On Saturday afternoon I took photos of some chalk art from non-professional artists, but after the rain on Sunday morning, they could hardly be seen.

Michelle Hawkins (with the beret below) from Orlando, Florida, was finishing her pumpkin themed drawing and joking with on-lookers and fellow artists.  It seems there was much chalk adorning the artists too...

Joel Yau, a chalk artist from San Rafael, California, who has participated in numerous international street art festivals, had finished his heroine from a sequel to horror movie "Frankenstein."  He draws attractive mid-century women faces as you can see below.

By now it was after 5 pm, the fest was over and people were leaving.  Most artists were congregating in the hospitality area reserved for them.  But Joel Yau was helping his street artist neighbor to finish his drawing.

The drawing was a brightly colored rendering of children with a pumpkin.  Being close to Halloween (October 31st) there were many scary faces and pumpkins, in the chalk drawings, decorating shops and also on the Square.

We walked across the Square to return to our car, but stopped by the fountain first.

It had been another fun afternoon on the Marietta Square.  We were pleased that we returned to the ChalkFest and to have seen the usual grey asphalt surface turned into a temporary museum.  There was such creative and stunning visual art with optical illusions and bright colors.  Their canvas was the pavement, temporarily.  This morning I was awaken before 5 am by the sound of sirens announcing a possible tornado.  This was followed by heavy rain.  I thought about all the chalk masterpieces around the Square and felt sad that they would be so soon gone, not with the wind ... but with the rain.