Ephemeral art gets moment in sun at Crystal Bridges festival

Chalk is familiar and accessible; most people have drawn on the sidewalk with chalk,” says Holly York, a senior museum educator at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art. “This festival takes the medium to the next level and introduces guests to the artistry of chalk. It’s incredible to see what these artists can do with chalk.”

York says this year’s inaugural Chalk Festival — set for Aug. 10-11 — was inspired by Chalktober Fest, sponsored by the Marietta Cobb Museum in Marietta, Ga. But chalk is trendy worldwide. A blog called BookAStreetArtist talks about it as both art and marketing in Germany, Australia and Japan.

“Chalk art is always designed for a specific place and audience,” the blog quotes artist Hiromi Moriya. And in the case

of Crystal Bridges, that audience is members of the community who might otherwise be less likely to visit the museum.

“This family-friendly festival not only features 25 artists from around the county, but also art making, music, face painting, lawn games, food trucks and an Ale Trail,” York says. “A chalk festival is a way to engage visitors in a different kind of art experience and activate new outdoor spaces.”

Along with local makers — among them Amber Winters Perrodin and Octavio Logo — the Chalk Festival welcomes an unusual artistic duo, father and daughter Ken and Aislynn Mullen from Florida.

“I like working with my dad; he’s influenced how I work as an artist, so it’s usually pretty easy to work together since we’ve been doing it for so long,” Aislynn says. “These days we mostly work separately but enjoy doing similar pieces; some ideas we have coming up are doing Thor and Loki and Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage.”