{"id":572,"date":"2016-01-05T10:42:42","date_gmt":"2016-01-05T15:42:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/onmymind\/?p=572"},"modified":"2016-01-04T15:43:17","modified_gmt":"2016-01-04T20:43:17","slug":"chalk-it-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/onmymind\/2016\/01\/05\/chalk-it-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Chalk! It Up"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"12291191_10156164346355315_6902328481807307691_o\"<\/p>\n

At commencement last year, I spoke about the thousands of rush hour commuters\u00a0on a Washington DC subway platform who never noticed, much less stopped, while\u00a0world-famous violinist Joshua Bell played Bach. Yet here, on the Seventh Avenue\u00a0sidewalk outside FIT\u2014at almost any time of day or night\u2014busy passersby are stopping,\u00a0or at least slowing down, as they notice our walls. What captures their attention is our\u00a0Chalk! project\u2014the large-scale exuberant images that run in a single, head-high band\u00a0along the exterior wall of Pomerantz\u2014all produced by our senior illustration majors and\u00a0alumni in brilliantly colored chalk. I must say, it is pretty hard to miss, even if you have\u00a0your nose pressed to your Smartphone.<\/p>\n

Chalk!, which is overseen by illustration Professors Dan Shefelman and Richard\u00a0Elmer, is now in its third year. From the start it was a great success and so it has become\u00a0something of an end-of-semester FIT tradition. As FIT\u2019s proud president, one of my\u00a0favorite aspects of Chalk! is that it demonstrates to passersby the serious, rigorous work\u00a0that goes on inside our walls—and allows them a glimpse, as well, into the sometimes\u00a0vivid, colorful and surprising nature of that work. I occasionally linger nearby and watch\u00a0people enjoy the mix of work the project puts on display. The colors are intense, almost\u00a0leaping off the stone. The range of styles is wide, including everything from the abstract,\u00a0to the comic, to representational portraiture.<\/p>\n

\"ChalkFIT10\"<\/p>\n

According to Professor Shefelman, the entire senior illustration class (about 45\u00a0students) submits images, and he puts out an open invitation to alumni as well. Once the\u00a0images have been approved, the artists reproduce their work on the Pomerantz walls\u00a0using a grid system or simply by eye. And people love it, he says.<\/p>\n

I can see that, and I\u2019m not surprised. Chalk! is arresting and powerful, and while I\u00a0am puzzled as to why busy people did not stop and listen to Joshua Bell in Washington, I\u00a0am delighted that busy New Yorkers stop to examine and enjoy the talents of our\u00a0students. Perhaps there are social scientists somewhere who will want to explore the\u00a0elements that lead to such disparate behaviors.<\/p>\n

In the meanwhile, I hope that anyone reading this who has not yet seen the project\u00a0will wander by. Chalk! is just made from chalk, after all. And eventually\u2014unfortunately\u2014chalk fades.<\/p>\n

\"ChalkFIT01\" <\/a> <\/div>
\"ChalkFIT02\" <\/a> <\/div>
\"ChalkFIT03\" <\/a> <\/div>
\"ChalkFIT04\" <\/a> <\/div>
\"ChalkFIT05\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"ChalkFIT06\" <\/a> <\/div>
\"ChalkFIT07\" <\/a> <\/div>
\"ChalkFIT08\" <\/a> <\/div>
\"ChalkFIT09\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div>
\"ChalkFIT11\" <\/a> <\/div>
\"ChalkFIT12\" <\/a> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div> <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At commencement last year, I spoke about the thousands of rush hour commuters\u00a0on a Washington DC subway platform who never noticed, much less stopped, while\u00a0world-famous violinist Joshua Bell played Bach. Yet here, on the Seventh Avenue\u00a0sidewalk outside FIT\u2014at almost any time of day or night\u2014busy passersby are stopping,\u00a0or at least slowing down, as they notice […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":436,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[35538],"tags":[20033,35543,27835,220,31924,30,35516],"class_list":["post-572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-campus-2","tag-art-design","tag-arts","tag-campus","tag-illustration","tag-public-art","tag-students","tag-tradition"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ycDS-9e","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/onmymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/onmymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/onmymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/onmymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/436"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/onmymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/onmymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/572\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/onmymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/onmymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.fitnyc.edu\/onmymind\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}