'Chalk It Up!' draws both young and old

    Melissa Maltais kneeled and ran her blue and purple chalk-stained hands over a brightly colored unicorn that transformed, if only for a few hours, an ordinary block of sidewalk into a magical creation.

   "You try to use as much color as you can and be sure to smooth it with your hands," the 10-year-old Arden girl said as she stood up from her concrete canvas to admire her handiwork. "Smoothing it over makes it flat and blends in the colors better."

   Maltais joined 150 other artists of all ages who spent a couple of hours Saturday morning on Main Street in downtown Hendersonville being creative and having fun at the same time during the 8th annual Chalk It Up! sidewalk chalk art contest.

   "All the artwork is so beautiful," said Maltais' mother, Cathy, as she looked up into gray, overcast skies. "I'm just hoping it doesn't rain."

   A light drizzle began to fall just as the competition ended, but it wasn't hard enough to make the soft colors of some paintings run or blur the sharply defined edges of portraits ranging from musician Ray Charles to World War II poster girl Rosie the Riveter. Residents and tourists alike filled the sidewalks of Main Street to take in the unique artwork before the weather went against them and washed it all away.

   Pedestrians were treated to a concrete square of abstract faces, a la Picasso, or they could view a more pastoral scene down the street of a farm house on bright green grass surrounded by a white picket fence complete with a red barn and a green tractor next to it. The artists themselves were absorbed in their work, some on their knees feverishly mixing and blending colors for a soft pastel effect while others took a slower, more deliberate approach with measured strokes, creating the well defined lines of a specific shape, such as Jillian Hosley's award winning Rosie the Riveter drawing.

   The brightly colored image of a young woman wearing a red bandana and a blue work shirt, her hand in a fist as she flexes her arm muscle drew oohs and aahs from people strolling down the sidewalk.

   "I've seen about 70 of them and the ones of Ray Charles and Rosie the Riveter are simply outstanding," said 63-year-old Horse Shoe resident Donald Dondero.

   His wife, Alicia, added that the sidewalk chalk art event is one the couple looks forward to every year.

   "This is not the first year we've seen the sidewalk art," she said, "and it's such a great idea."

   Hosley said the picture of Rosie the Riveter, made famous in the 1940s as America's women went into the factories to work while the men went to war, inspired her creation.

   "It seemed kind of fitting with the war going on (in Iraq) right now, it seems patriotic," the 24-year-old waitress said. "I want people to come away with a feeling of empowerment, a feeling of enjoyment -- that's probably the best feeling of all for me."

   Chalk It Up! creator Barbara Hughes, owner of Narnia Studios in Hendersonville, said each year's contest gets better and better.

   Downtown merchants contribute prizes including tee-shirts and gift certificates for winners and the artists put all their energy and imagination into their creations, she said.

   "They (merchants) love Chalk It Up! because it brings happy people to downtown," Hughes said. "It allows everyone to have their own little piece of Main Street."

Leigh Kelley
Times-News Staff Writer
July 18. 2004 12:52AM
leigh.kelley@hendersonvillenews.com