Chalk Signals

Tonight, when I was out walking the mean streets of St. Paul after midnight, I came across a hundred-jump hopscotch drawn on the sidewalk in neon, practically glow-in-the-dark pink chalk.  This caught my eye, and I began to wonder who possibly took the time out of their busy schedule to draw such an elaborate numerical hopscotch.  Then I thought, “Hey, maybe little people drew this.  You know, children?”

Then, as I continued my constitutional, I came across a series of chalk sketches, or etches, or drawings, if you will.  One enjoyable piece caught the image, or at least impression, of a school bus full of happy kids with a happy school bus driver.  But as much as I enjoyed the piece, I felt it lacked a workable dialogue of some sort.  So I took up a fat piece of chalk let discarded in the grass and drew the phrase, “Yay!” next to the bus driver’s head.  I felt this conveyed, more fully, what the graphic artist sidewalk little person(s) was going for.  

I like this idea of chalk signals.  Let the little people of this neighborhood merrily sketch all day long, under a bright yellow sun, and later, under the cool dark cloak of night, I will give words to their creations.  Together we will venture down a shared artistic path, each of us growing to the size of legend in the mind of the unknowable, unseen Other.