Chalk art popping up in secret locations in Kettering
Contest promotes appreciation of city’s 21 parks.
Each week Kettering is creating a new work of art in a secret location — and you only get one clue to figure out where it is.
Chalk It Up to Play is a free summer contest designed to help the community discover Kettering Parks.
Each week for 10 weeks, Tiffany Kelly, a chalk artist with Chalk N’ Awe, creates a colorful image in one of the city’s 21 parks. A photograph from that park — the only hint — is posted on the PlayKettering Facebook page each Thursday.
Visitors have a week to find the chalk art and send a selfie to PlayKettering via direct Facebook message.
Directions to register and rules can be found at www. playkettering.org/chalkituptoplay.
Pose and post with five chalk drawings to receive a $10 Orange Leaf gift card. Pose with all 10 drawings to be entered to win a $100 PlayKettering gift card.
Act quickly to see all of them. Several have already been created, but Kelly, who preserves her artwork with hair spray, said they will last for weeks.
“It’s a way of bringing people to different parks they might not have seen on their own,” said Sara Thomas, communications coordinator for the Parks, Recreation and Cultural Arts department.
Kelly, who says “chalk art is a performance art,” recently created a large art piece of Curious George blowing a bubble for visitors to find and to promote the city’s July 14 Bubble Fest.
Thomas said there’s been a great response to the contest. “People have told us, ‘I’ve never seen this park before and now it’s one of our favorites to come to.’”