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| Yesterday CARD held Pastels on the Plaza.
In was done in conjunction with Parent Education Network and was organized
by CARD's Ann Willman. Chalk was provided as well as some other tools,
and a single square (4'x4') could be had with a $20 donation. On the north
side of the plaza sponsors had 8'x8' squares ($50). This has been an Chico
tradition, but was held elsewhere last year due to construction. I sponsored an 8'x8' square and convinced a gullible artist I know to do most of the work (thanks Gregg). The nearly finished artwork is shown above. Can you guess what the subject of the art is? Sprinkles ran a lot of people off early, but we stuck it out. We were rewarded with a TV interview which placed our sidewalk art on the local news. The crowd was smaller than in some previous years, but we did get a few city officials to come by. Park Commissioner Jim Walker and City Councilor Ann Schwab are two that come to mind. Here's some of the other artwork. |
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CI Challenge: Can you guess what it is? Winner: Gregg Payne, see comments below for the answer. |
Street Walkers and Fine Art, What Could Be Better?
9 Comments
Lon
About Me: Fasten your seatbelts for an exhilarating trip through Chico's public policy; I guarantee it's marginally better than public access TV.
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Kind of looks like tiny fossils so I suppose my first guess would be diatomaceous earth.
Gregg,
I'll give this one to you. It is Upper Cretacious chalk formed from coccoliths.
This scanning electron micrograph (SEM) shows how important organisms can be in forming sediment. The high resolution image shows a fractured surface of a fragment of Upper Cretaceous chalk. The chalk is composed mainly of small elliptical 'scales' or platelets or fragments of these, each fragment or platelet element being a single calcite crystal. The platelets (coccoliths, average 7 microns in diameter) once overlapped to form an external skeleton (coccosphere) which surrounded the spherical cells of tiny plankton (diameters 15-100microns) which lived in the surface waters of the ancient chalk sea...
Here's a portion of a definition of diatomaceous earth, which is also described as chalk(although not in the description below).
Diatomaceous earth consists of fossilized remains of diatoms, a type of hard-shelled algae. It is used as a filtration aid, as a mild abrasive, as a mechanical insecticide, as an absorbent for liquids, as cat litter, as an activator in blood clotting studies, and as a component of dynamite. As it is also heat-resistant, it can be used as a thermal insulator.
Lon
FYI: I've got your TV interview DVR'ed if you want to see it. Your televised comments were along the lines of this is a fun artistic event and people can come out and show what they can do. We didn't put any planning into our design, but just kind of did it on the fly.
Then they panned onto our drawing and said "Some used the opportunity to express views on a variety of issues in Chico" and showed me doing all of the work on the art. I appeared to be quite the budding chalk artist.
Our design was also the image used as a backdrop of the entire story, so we got a good 10 seconds air time.
Lon
OK smarties - but you know that the pastel chalk you were using on the sidewalks probably isn't made of diatomaceous earth anymore, but more likely (and unfortunately) synthetics. Of course, you can also make your own. I just found a recipe for it that involves tempera paint (my namesake - cool) and eggshells.
By the way, what a great fundraising idea! Sorry I missed it.
Tempra,
We are pretty smart.
Gregg and I have a secret diatomaceous earth chalk mine located at the disc golf course. In fact disc golf is simply a distracting camouflage we invented to hide our money making scheme.
We poured all our lead-based chalk into the storm drains a few years back at Jennifer's request. In fact that's the reason the Storm Drain Gang's eyes are bulbous.
We would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those pesky Friends.
Lon
Cool, my grandparents were rock hounds and we'd go fossil hunting in the Jemez Mountains in New Mexico when I was a kid.
The Pastels in the Plaza has always been a favorite fun event and for a great cause too. Being around all the natural talent in those little kids is a great inspirational recharge. It's great that we all got some good press before the rain washed it all away.
So, OK, smartypantses and smartypanties, without looking it up, where is the Upper Cretaceous? No cheatin' now...
GREAT JOB GUYS. My son thought it was funny. How can I get a reproduction? I have an 8x8 square of concrete and plenty of synthetic chalk.
Gregg,
The Upper Cretaceous is just above the Middle Cretaceous, and quite a bit higher than the Lower Cretaceous. While still associated it is temporally (not Tempra-ly) dislocated from the Section 8 Cretaceous period.
If you've got any more questions let me know.
Steve,
That magical art has been lost for eternity to the whims of nature. Now it lives on only as a collection of pixels mapped by electronic charges in the digital world.
So the answer is ctrl-c followed by ctrl-v, but you'll need a big printer to cover that square.
Lon
that is some great artwork there. I drove past while all that was going on, and it started raining right as I was going past, and I said "poor chalk artists, their art is going into the storm drains." and Marissa said "drive faster slave!" =P