Jessi Queen looked at the weather forecast on Tuesday and figured there would be just enough time to start and finish her part of a group tribute before the rains were supposed to come on Thursday.
She gathered her boxes of multicolored chalks, went outside and began drawing a large grid in blue chalk on the end of their East Atlanta Village driveway. Her husband, Zach Herndon, joined her, and as each of them chose a piece of chalk and applied it to the concrete, the close-up of a face emerged. They referred back to an actual photograph of the woman they were drawing because it was important to get it right. The woman in the picture is a friend of theirs and lives in Michigan. In her spare time, the woman is a chalk artist, like Queen and Herndon are in theirs. Queen is a web designer. Herndon tests software. Their friend’s fulltime job is as an anesthesiologist, Queen and Herndon said. For the past few weeks, that friend has been working with COVID-19 patients.
“All she’s doing right now is hooking people up to ventilators,” Herndon said.
When their portion of the portrait is done, it will be virtually stitched together with those of other artist friends in Seattle, Houston and California, and presented to the doctor in a stop-action video, they said. The portrait is just one example of how people across Atlanta and the nation are not only paying tribute to frontline workers in the pandemic, but how they are using the ephemeral art form of chalk art to uplift friends, stay connected while remaining safely distant from each other and to remain creative under stay-at-home orders.
“When you chalk your street, you have an opportunity to impact somebody with a small, pleasant thing when the world is so unpleasant now,” Herndon said.
#chalkyourwalk and #chalkthewalk have flourished on social media since lockdowns began a few weeks ago. Some of the images are by professionals, such as Queen and Herndon, who, before the pandemic, would travel around the country for chalk art festivals. Others are by families just looking to keep their kids occupied, but also engaged with their friends and communities in a way that doesn’t involve a computer screen.
Pam Ryan’s 7-year-old son, Robert, is already a sports fanatic, whether playing soccer himself or watching baseball on television. But with no live sports, she has struggled to keep him happy.
“My son is dying for sports, and he’s just so disappointed that everything is canceled,” said Ryan.
When playing soccer in the yard with family wasn’t enough, Ryan gathered up chalk, and she and her son drew games on their sidewalk in Avondale Estates. Some of the games were simple children’s games, hopscotch or “I spy.” What Ryan found, however, was that other neighbors out for walks would stop and look at the games and maybe play them. So, using gloves, Ryan gathered other pieces of chalk, put them in three plastic bags and left them in intervals along on her street, hopeful others would find ways to safely use the chalk to create their own games or messages.
Tara Ingle lives across the street from Ryan and has been leaving uplifting chalk messages with her 9-year-old daughter, Madeleine, throughout their neighborhood, “because it keeps morale up,” she said. They started by leaving congratulatory messages to high school seniors in the neighborhood who would not be able to celebrate with traditional parties. It evolved into more general messages of encouragement, an acknowledgment that these are the most trying of times for many.
“I know we live in a great community, but you don’t always get to see everyone’s joyful heart, and this has shown those joyful hearts,” Ingle said.
Susan Ward in Alpharetta has left similar messages of hope for her neighbors, following patterns she has seen on Instagram. Last weekend, she drew birthday wishes for a young neighbor who had a drive-by birthday party.
“They are gone in two or three days,” Ward said of the messages, “but it’s nice anyway because so many people stop and look.”
About the same time that Queen and Herndon were working on their tribute, Lata Fields was working on an elaborate goodwill message at the end of her driveway in Hogansville. She is an art teacher, so she chose something ambitious — a portrait of U2’s frontman, Bono. Huge, rendered in bold blues and reds, it’s easily visible from a passing car. As bold as Bono’s face is, so are the words she surrounded it with: “It’s a beautiful day,” from the band’s 2000 hit, “Beautiful Day.”
“We need to be reminded of that and to take one day at a time and pause,” Fields said. “There are some beautiful things happening. Don’t let that get away.”
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