10-10-21 Chalktoberfest in Marietta

 

"Chalking the streets is believed to begun in the Europe during the 16th century. Italy was the hub of the of the madonnari –(street artist). These street artists would travel from festival to festival drawing Madonna and other religious icons using chalk, coal and tile. Coins were tossed to them as they chalked to pay homage to Madonna. These folk artists were able to create simple images on paved town squares and dirt using minimal materials.

In the 1980s a few artists brought street painting to the United States. “Sidewalk Sam” (Robert Guillemin) made a lasting contribution to this performing art form. Kurt Wenner became the first American artist to practice Italian madonnari. Wenner introduced this art form in the USA at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art at the first such festival in 1985.

Today there are several festivals around the country attracting top artists from around the world. The Marietta Cobb Museum of Art is please to present this performing art form to the Metro Atlanta area."

Chalktoberfest began as a fund raiser for the museum in 2013 and in eight years has grown to attracting over 100,000 people to Marietta Square to enjoy all that Chalktoberfest has to offer.

 I've wanted to go to this event every since I heard about it about 5 years ago, but never had the chance to.  Last year it was canceled because of Covid.  The year before that it rained a lot.  Before that we lived too far away.  So when Ken brought it up this year, I was surprised, and excited.  I didn't think he would be interested in it since I know it's always crowded and parking is a mess.  But if he was interested, I figured we should try and get there.  

I knew the big obstacle would be to find a parking spot that wasn't too far away or too many hills away from the square.  Much to my surprise, we got a spot right behind the square and it was a handicap spot!  Only problem was figuring out how to pay for the spot.  There was a sign that mentioned texting the payment, but then it said to display the receipt.  How do you do that if you text it?!  There was a self-pay booth in the parking lot below, so I took a chance that it was part of the same parking lot and paid there and got a receipt to display.  Paid the $10, and we were on our way----only to find the street blocked off so well leading to the festival that I couldn't get the wheel chair by.  Tried to go down the first sidewalk, but it was blocked by tables and chairs and signs.  Fortunately the next sidewalk was clear enough to get down to the festival. 

Along with the 100,000 people checking out the art, there were lots of booths of wares.  Plus on Sat. they had a beer fest with about 120 beers to taste.  We were there on Sunday so missed out on that.

There were still a lot of artists working on their artwork. 

I never could find out what the winner gets, but artist show up from around the world. 

Love how the artist always have such interestingly colored pants.

and hands

1 side of the square was dedicated to youth art and group art

this was one of the local school's group art.

this was another school group piece.

We drove past the museum looking for a parking spot, but couldn't go in even if we wanted to because of the steps.

another artist at work

I guess the artists are sponsored. 

a couple pieces were done standing up.  Wonder what happened to those pieces of art?! 

Lots of varieties of chalk.  Some made it into a liquid to paint on.

happy halloween!

there was something about finding the Minions and checking in at some station for some sort of prize.  So there were random Minions lurking around.

some more artists supplies.

Interesting idea of modernizing a Van Gogh painting.

Don't know who this is suppose to be, but I like it.

some of the pieces were actually 3 dimensional.  This was one of them, but I didn't get into the position to get a good representation of it.

Didn't get one of this 3D art piece either, but some of them had platforms on them for standing or sitting on to give them more scale.

my type of work

missed the boy kneeling down by the artwork

that's a selfie stick!

cute little dinosaur

I really didn't pay much attention to what people were selling in the tents, but this one really caught my eye.

Ken suggested sitting off to the side somewhere and me going around by myself, so I left him by some of the paintings at first.  Then came back and moved him into the center of the square where there was a musician and lots of kids playing, dancing, and drawing with chalk.

cute halloween displays in the center, too

heading back out to check out the other 2 sides of the square.

another upright piece---and the only artist I saw wearing a mask

love the painting of someone painting.

i think this was 3D, too, but I didn't wait to get directly in front of it.

another halloween piece

This 3D one really intrigued me.

lots of art pieces of people

Hammerin' Hank

another 3D photo---rather strange assortment of stuff in it.

and the bizaar

looks like 1 beer booth was still there and doing a good business.

love the colors in this

another artist's media

like how she's just walking over where he's working

another 3D picture but I'm not at the right angle.

another upright piece.

can't decide which of these 2 photos I like better.

heading back into the middle of the square to get Ken.

There he is.  Might of stayed awhile longer, but there was nowhere for me to sit.

don't know where the chalk came from, but the kids were having a ball drawing in the square.

So glad Ken suggested going.  We saw a lot of amazing artwork, as well as great people watching.  The musician was really good, too.