The streets of The Greene will come alive today as artists create living art using only pastel chalk to bring awareness to national mental health awareness month from 10am – 10pm!
Watching art come to life is considered a performance art and has an immediacy that gives every piece a uniqueness that can never be truly duplicated. You can vote for your favorite, by making a donation to Life Essentials!
Take part in a family scavenger hunt and a kid’s chalking area. Wind down with a block party in the evening. The event will support Life Essentials’ unique and specialized programs that enable seniors and people living with mental illness to have a greater quality of life.
Special guest artist Jennifer Nichols was born into an artistic family. Her grandfather, Harry E. Stinson, was a recognized Sculptor, Painter and Art Professor. Jennifer’s formal art training started in high school, and she began to accumulate awards and sell her early watercolor paintings.
Later, Jennifer attended UCLA, graduating with a degree in Design, focusing on costume & clothing design. She continued to pursue painting while working in advertising and raising her two daughters in Dayton, Ohio. Jennifer’ work was exhibited at various galleries and events in Ohio between 1992 – 1999. She also was very involved with the Dayton Visual Arts Center, serving as their president and as a board member and contributing artist.
In 1999, she moved to Palm Beach, Florida. In 2004, Jennifer and her daughters began participating in the Street Painting Festival in Lake Worth, Florida, which is the largest street painting event in the United States, attracting 100,000 visitors each year. In 2012, Jennifer founded the International Street Painting Society, as a way to help other street artists connect and be more successful, and help street painting be seen as a legitimate art form.
Jennifer’s work shows a unique talent for capturing faces and expressions. By working to duplicate the colors and shading of the original art, Jennifer stays true to the original work of art. Using soft pastel chalk on pavement or concrete surfaces, these large works of art are washed away after each event. Jennifer’s philosophy is that street painting is as much about the performance and execution, as it is about the art. The immediacy and challenges of the “canvas”, weather and medium make each piece special and unique. U
Usually over the course of 2 days, each piece comes to life before your eyes. Constantly looking for new challenges, she is open to new materials and processes, and will chalk on just about anything.
David Zinn temporary street art is composed entirely of chalk, charcoal and found objects, and is always improvised on location. Most of these drawings have appeared on sidewalks in Ann Arbor and elsewhere in Michigan, but some have surfaced as far away as subway platforms in Manhattan and construction debris in the Sonoran Desert. Zinn’s chalk work began in 2001 as an excuse to linger outdoors, but has since achieved global notoriety through the sharing of photos on Facebook, Huffington Post UK, The Cheezburger Network, Street Art Utopia, and Archie McPhee’s Endless Geyser of Awesome. His most frequent characters are Sluggo (seen here) , a bright green monster with stalk eyes and irreverent habits, and Philomena, a phlegmatic flying pig. As of 2013, there have been a lot of mice as well.
