2012 chalking

Cleveland Art Museum front yard

I left a link, three items ago, to an entry on last year's chalk weekend. I did not plan on this one, but the drawings are good. In centuries past, street artists chalked pictures before Italian churches. They were called 'I Madonnari'. Other street artists did the same in other lands. Its popularity returned to Italy in the 1970s. It has been popular in California about the Spanish mission churches beginning in 1987. Soon thereafter the Californian idea came to Cleveland.

I took these paintings early this evening. I wanted to come after the drawings were finished, and the crowds gone. The chalking was done yesterday, and the day before. The Art Museum is closed on Mondays. To-morrow heavy rain is forecast. Trying to find a parking space is difficult in University Circle. It is almost to the point, that one needs to live on campus to get there. Other people came to look, and foto the drawings too. Some were travelling through on bicycle.

There were few copies of masters. There was one American Gothic, and a take off; two Screams, a Modigliani. The most common subjects were current cable television cartoon characters.

Several chalk drawings were of wildlife. There was more a few lions.
I thought this the most enjoyable. Our long neck friend has as many cervical vertebræ as we [typical mammalian 7], but he has more surface area.
A few connected with the city. Supra is one of the 'Guardians of Traffic' on the Lorain-Carnegie Bridge.
I was going to post this on 12 December, Mary as Our Lady of Guadalupe, Patroness of the Americas. Another chalk drawing was a Pieta.
A mother was walking by with her daughter. They stop before this one, and she recites to the child:

Rub-a-dub-dub,
Three men in a tub,
And who do you think they be?
The butcher, the baker,
The candlestick maker,
And all of them going to sea.

The Cleveland Art Museum has an Armour Court, with a mounted Knight. He is taking Ruben's Portrait of Isabella Brant.