America

I am heading off on Wednesday (26th) to America for this year’s Sarasota Chalk Festival in Florida. The Sarasota Chalk Festival became the first international street painting festival in the United States last year and is now considered one of the most important international contemporary festivals in the world (http://www.chalkfestival.com/).
There will be 250 artist expected to participate in this year’s festival, 50 will be international visitors to America from Mexico, Italy, France, Germany, Spain, Netherlands, Argentina, Korea and Canada. I will be the only Australian artist attending this year.
I am very excited about the festival and glad that I have made it so far with my chalk work. Especially considering that I first became interested in working in chalk almost by accident (about 18months ago an opportunity arose to create artworks on the blackboard at my local coffee shop, ’Tasmanian Coffee Roaster’)” .
The theme of the festival is ‘Pavement Art through the Ages’ tracing the art form from its thinly documented roots to today’s current contemporary movements. I will be creating a 12 x 12 foot image on South Pineapple Ave, based on a the Japanese traditional story of the Dragon King.
I will be attending some instructional classes on street painting techniques from the internationally renowned artist Kurt Wenner (http://www.kurtwenner.com/street.htm), the innovator of 3D pavement art.
Before I head to Florida, I will spend a few days in New York, where I will attend the 125th Birthday of the Statue of Liberty. It should be heaps of fun.