Document text
Art on the asphalt Mail Tribune / Jim Craven Artist Ann DiSalvo tried to stay in the shade of her umbrella Saturday as she worked on the smile of her Mona Lisa. DiSalvo is one of the artists participating in this weekend�s chalk art event on the top level of Medford�s downtown parking garage. Chalk festival lets novices create along with the pros By Bill Varble It�s only 10 Saturday morning and it�s already hot as Julie Kirk sketches on the pavement of the top level of Medford�s downtown parking garage. Using chalk on a long stick (no bending) and referring to a sketch she carries, Kirk chalks in the outlines of clouds, an angel, a cherub. Kirk, of Chino, Calif., is the featured artist at a street art event going on this weekend at the parking structure. The festival is sponsored by the North Medford Rotary Club. For two days, Kirk and other artists, both professional and amateur, will create colorful artworks on large grids they�ve laid out on the pavement. For $5, spectators can buy a square and create their own masterpieces. Kirk is incorporating an angel by Michaelangelo and a cherub by Tiepolo in a design of her own. "I�ve been wanting to take masters� figures and work more with my own compositions," she says. When it�s going well, she loses herself in her work. "Some of it�s just acreage," she says. "Then you get into a face or something, and it�s meditative. You just go into this space." Chalk street art dates back to Renaissance Italy. The most popular theme at the time was the Madonna, which gave practitioners the name, Madonnari. It�s traditional for street artists to do Renaissance themes. Kirk says the parking structure�s asphalt is slippery and doesn�t take pastels well. As a result, she�ll work rougher and not do too much blending of colors on the top layer, she says. If she has a problem with one area, she abandons it, works elsewhere and comes back later. Unlike Kirk, Michelle Clark of Medford is doing her first large-scale chalk art project. It�s to be a 12-foot-square scene of two African elephants at a watering hole. If she�s daunted by the sheer size of the undertaking, she doesn�t show it. "I have a pretty big family," she says. "They�re going to help me fill in." Chad Bartlett�s project could be alarming when it�s done. "It�ll look like the pavement is caving in," he says. He�s using a lot of dark chalk to create jagged shadows. Ann DiSalvo of Ashland rubs on sunscreen and adjusts her knee pads as she prepares to create her interpretation of the Mona Lisa. A professional artist, DiSalvo says she was attracted to the street art event by its public nature. "That immediate reaction of people," she says. "It�s not always as an artist that you get that." DiSalvo was in Italy in May and saw Madonnari in the streets of Milan. It�s believed that many of the original practitioners were war veterans with disabilities who used charcoal and put out hats or baskets for donations. Sidewalk art persisted for centuries in Italy. Although it died out during World War II, it�s seen a revival in recent years. Julie Kirk travels all over for festivals. She says the chalk paintings will be left in place for a time when the event is over. In most festivals the art is on busy streets and winds up getting washed off immediately. She says people often compare the destruction of the artworks to the sand mandala created by Tibetan monks only to be destroyed. At the end of a recent chalk art festival she attended in Eastern Washington, firefighters showed up with a pumper. "I got to hold the fire hose," she says. "Some of the organizers were crying. Most of the artists were just gleeful." See it today With artists finishing their works later today, this afternoon will be the best times to visit the chalk art festival at the downtown parking garage in Medford at Sixth and Riverside. Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. today. It�s free; $5 gets you a square to do your own chalk renderings. Cold drinks and other refreshments available. Obituaries | Sports | Business | Classifieds | Tempo | Prime Times | So Oregon Sites | Outdoor Journal | Subscribe | Contact | Movies | Advertise | Real Estate Showcase | Archive | Editorials | Letters to the editor | Religion | Wake-up Call | NIE | Cyber Chef | Job Network | So Oregon Weather | WSJ Northwest | Forums | AP Wire | AP Money | F.A.Q. | Awards Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. The Community Newspaper Subsidiary of Dow Jones & Co, Inc Copyright �The Mail Tribune 2000, Medford, Oregon USA