6 Comments

  1. By Kris
    July 24, 2009 at 1:06 pm | permalink

    That better wash off, otherwise it’s graffiti!

  2. By Tom Brandt
    July 24, 2009 at 1:39 pm | permalink

    I believe it’s blue chalk, not paint.

  3. By Dave Askins
    July 24, 2009 at 3:20 pm | permalink

    Was downtown just a few minutes ago and discretely dabbed at a corner of one of the rectangles — based on how it smudged, it appears to be chalk.

  4. By Bill Tozier
    July 25, 2009 at 8:39 am | permalink

    Seems to me to be the perfect medium for collaborative, community-based artwork and mashups. A few extra colors of spray-chalk, a few well-designed stencils to go along with it, and I bet we could start a lovely public collage representing the state of media in the region, the social dynamics of walkability, all kinds of stuff.

    I wonder if chalk marks are copyright… and if they are, how that might affect their role as graffiti. The law is a wonderful thing, honestly. Full of complexity.

  5. By Laura
    July 25, 2009 at 10:24 am | permalink

    Central Michigan University changed their policy on chalking after one group started using spray chalk. Spray chalk is technically water soluble, but is designed to stay around longer than regular chalk.

    Here’s the CMU stories:

    April 2007 “Aside from the notable aesthetic detriment, it shows a great deal about the work ethic of the people who use it. It takes time, energy and thought to get on your knees and use regular sidewalk chalk to cover the campus,” Potter said. “The use of spray chalk is just a lazy man’s way of cutting corners.” Link

    July 2007 A committee looking into chalking policy at the university will meet Thursday. “The biggest change is to discontinue the spray chalk policy,” Voisin said. “We’ve seen it’s not a temporary product. We don’t want to create a situation where we have graffiti all over the sidewalks.” Link

    August 2007 CMU this week adopted a policy which prohibits anyone from using anything other than water-soluble chalk to leave messages on campus sidewalks. Link

  6. By Edward Vielmetti
    July 25, 2009 at 12:44 pm | permalink

    I’m collecting sidewalk chalk details at annarbor.com here under the title “Sidewalk chalk is not a crime”.