I'm sure there were those that just wanted to show up on the last day of the Sarasota Chalk Festival just to see the final pieces, but that's not me.  I wanted to be there throughout the entire process.  I wanted to be there for the journey. My arrival to Sarasota was also my departure on a tour of talent that spanned an endless canvas of chalked art down Pineapple Avenue.  These incredible artists were blazing trails, showing us onlookers what hands, patience, and imagination could create on such a solid, yet fleeting surface.

There were artists from the local area, across the United States, Mexico, Cuba, and of course, from where it all started, Italy.

It Starts with a "Grazie"

In the early evening that Friday, I drove down to Pineapple Avenue where the festival was being held. I met a couple of old friends, Wayne and Cheryl Renshaw, who had flown in from California to create one of their awe-inspiring 3D chalk paintings.

It was that night that I learned about "the Grazie" - a 24-hour chalk painting competition inspired by the original that was held in Grazie di Curtatone, Italy back in 1972. That night's compeition began at 6pm and would go until 6pm on Saturday. It was a bit of serendipity because night photography has always been a passion of mine. So there I was with my cameras, standing among all these artists hugging the ground, working inside pockets of harsh, spotlit light - islands in the darkness. It was an asphalt commune of friendly people creating their art in real time, masterpieces slowly taking shape.

Playing in the Streets

The next morning I walked down to the site of the festival from my hotel, all along amazed by the gorgeous and varied architecture of Sarasota. It didn't take long to get to South Pineapple Avenue and the scene was quite different. The crowds had started moving up and down the sides of the buildings, and all of the artists were out chalking, not just the participants of the Grazie.  I had no idea the size of the festival until that morning.

I began photographing the art as I walked along, but as is my tendency, my lenses were aimed at the artists more frequently than their art. It takes a great deal of patience and focus to produce one of these pieces, and what can I say? I enjoy photographing people in their element.  :-)

Most of the artists were not participating in the 24-hour Grazie, but this was still a timed event with their paintings needing to be complete by 6pm on Sunday. Even with that pressure to finish, under the sun all day, and at times with the threat of rain, these people are still smiling and socializing with their chalk-stained neighbors on the avenue. Many of them also take the time to chat and sign the festival programs of passers-by.

The Third Dimension

One of the incredible sights of the festival are the three-dimensional chalk paintings.  When you stand at a specific point, they just pop out at you. If you peer "into" the painting, reality seems to bend around it. I've also noticed that really good ones give you a slight bit of vertigo. As you look "down" onto one, the forced perspective fools your brain into thinking that you are looking "across" instead.

Wayne and Cheryl painted a pirate on his ship and a mermaid swimming in the background. Their piece was one of the few that spanned the width of Pineapple Avenue. Even with the street bending slightly upwards in the middle, they seemed to account for this while painting it. The depth of the image was mesmerizing.  

There was also another large painting that included an "augmented reality" (AR) element by Art For After Hours. By placing an iPad at the center vantage point (where the 3D perspective would be correct), they had a pass-through live image of their street painting (while it was being painted mind you) with animated birds overlaid on top. I hadn't heard much of AR since the Steve Mann WearComp days of the 1990s, so it was a treat to see this concept in action again, at least, on something other than the HUD of a fighter jet. :-)

From Pineapple Avenue With Love

After I checked out of my hotel Monday morning, I headed down to Pineapple one last time. My intent was to capture each chalk painting as best I could before leaving town. I wasn't expecting to see too many artists since the actual creation part was over. I was very pleased to see many who had yet to leave or who were local enough that they didn't have to worry about catching a flight.

It was a pleasure to see some new friends right before leaving: Lori, Brenda, Michael, Jeanie, Julio, and Bill. I arrived just in time to catch them crashing a TV interview with Denise Kowal, the festival's founder.  Watching Lori in action was priceless! Her passion for the arts is contagious.  :-)

I hope to see all of these people again soon.  I enjoyed photographing this event more than I have shooting any concert in the past.  I can honestly say that I have a new favorite type of event to photograph. :-)

The water was quiet that day, and aside from a handful of people scattered throughout the shoreline, we were left alone with our conversations and idle hands: Bouncing ideas off each other and throwing rocks into the water. It was myself, Jonathan, and Jaime: two of my good friends who were roommates in the city. The swish and pop of the water provided a percussion background to discuss random thoughts, future plans, and stories about ex-girlfriends.

Minutes earlier, we had pulled off the highway into Emeryville, avoiding the molases of traffic heading back west over the bay bridge to San Francisco. We made our way to Marina Park, which is across the bay, perpendicular to the Golden Gate bridge. We could see San Francisco to the left side of the Golden Gate, and Sausalito and Mount Tamilpias to the right.

Not long after we plunked ourselves down on the rocks, the sun edged closer to the far side of mountains, just barely scratching the top. The area around the park was flat, completely surrounded by water, and we could see stretches of patchy clouds for miles. At that point, they were just shades of gray, but the sun bending over the mountain had lit a fire, burning the entire sky like a match exploding in slow motion.

As we sat there looking towards the Golden Gate, it was a panoramic splendor. We felt small, yet significant enough to realize what we were experiencing was true beauty. The blues of the sky had reached overhead and were fading behind us into a dark navy. Still moving, albeit slowly, the clouds in front were coarsing between orange and yellow. A few of the thicker clouds only allowed violet to pass through, streaking hard shadows upon patches that trailed eastward behind us.

We were completely hypnotized, not to mention those who had quietly settled in around us. The chattering of strangers had slowed, outbursts of stories being told had turned into slow moans of awe, as all eyes faced westward. The colors above projected downward and mixed with the water below. Like the color and speed of the thicker clouds, the waves betrayed an ultraviolet hue as they crawled toward us, as if to climb up the rocks and get us wet.

Now over the horizon and mountains, the sun persisted in tweaking the colors around us. Everything in sight had become a canvas to paint upon, one last time before the night arrived. Vertigo seemed to set in as our world turned a blur between sea and sky. Up and down no longer mattered, only the streaks of clouds moving towards us and the sun moving away. Reality had become Silly Putty, with God stretching it over us thinly, and a nuclear disco ball hidden somewhere behind the mountains.

The oranges and purples became opaque, nearly indistingushable from the blues that went dark. The water gave up her last reflections and went black, except for the occasional twinkling of the crests of waves. The mountains in front were in complete silhouette. What remained were the red coals of a fire where the yellows had last been seen. Slowly it burned out, starting directly above us, and then down to the mountains in front, where the spark had originated.

The traffic over the bridge was thinning as the sun provided it's last encore. A few of the 100-odd people who had shared the sunset with us were standing up to stretch and began talking again. My friends and I were slow to break our silence, hoping it would prolong what only could be described as visual ecstacy. We stayed a few minutes longer and discussed what we had seen here, how we were incredibly luckily to have decided to act upon our laziness, to get off the highway and take a breather.

To this day, 7 years later, this is still the sunset to which I compare all others.