“Maybe life is like chalk art. It comes and goes so fast,” Sacramento’s Jim Hunt says.
Hunt, who has participated in Sacramento’s Chalk Art Festival for more than a decade, will produce a chalk art piece on a wall at Redding’s Sweetspot restaurant (930 Hilltop Drive, Suite B) from 5 to 8 p.m. during 2nd Saturday Art Hop on Saturday. The public is invited to come out and watch him in process.
Chalk art image courtesy chalkitup.org (Chalk It Up Sacramento).
Everyone who does chalk art must, at some point, come to terms with the impermanence of the affair, Hunt explains. Like sand castles, the work eventually blows away or gets taken out by water or feet or something else.
Hunt, a middle-school art teacher who also paints and works in ceramics, loves the richness of the colors used in chalk art. He has an affinity for how the colors come together and harmonize while working on a piece.
At chalk art festivals, Hunt also loves the sense of camaraderie with the other artists and the people who come to see the works.
Some chalk artists use techniques with water to bleed the chalk into the concrete surface (or whatever surface is being used), but it only delays the inevitable — the work is going away. Photos end up being the permanent documents.
“The artists are keenly aware of the impermanence of the art,” Hunt said. “You have to convince yourself philosophically or steel yourself emotionally that it’s going to go away.”
There appears to be something freeing in that reality. It reminds me of Chris Fennell’s fish and wave sculptures at Redding City Hall that will eventually be dismantled. Fennell’s completely OK with the fact that much of his work gets destroyed. He sometimes burns it.
There’s something in the process that matters most, perhaps. The art is in the creation.
Some of the popular themes (or categories) in chalk art include trompe l’ceil (trick of the eye) works, that tend to have stunning three-dimensional depth. It’s also popular to reference famous works of art such as Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” or do graphic-oriented works, or cartoony figures.
Hunt likes doing landscapes that are allegorical, like a futuristic cityscape, but thinks he might try more of a depth piece in Redding. A switch for him will be going from the more typical ground surface (usually a sidewalk) to a vertical wall.
This month’s version of the 2nd Saturday Art Hop will also feature the Redding fire dancing troupe, The Fire Dolls, who will perform from 5 to 6 p.m. at Carnegie Stage in Library Park in downtown Redding.
For a list of participating businesses, see this month’s Enjoy magazine or visit here.
