Talk the Talk, Chalk the Walk
An Art-on-the-Ground Production
Completed Drawings | Maurice Working | Maurice Action Detail

Skateboard? Check. Kites? Check. Camera? Check. Lenses and film? Check. Rocks? Not yet. Let's leave. The first stop is in Newhall Pass. When transporation was powered by horses this crossing from Los Angeles into the Santa Clara River valley was formidable. In service of the Army fort at Tejon Pass, Lt. Beale made a wagon route the first of many main lines through this pass. I want to see the pass, and the cut Beale's men dug. My ultimate objective is the house of my co-worker Maurice. Activities are indeterminate as yet. We'll just meet and see what happens. The road is steep, the cut narrow, the other side just as steep. Those poor horses. The September air is dry and rapidly warming, but clear and offering long views toward Liebre Mountain and others. I amble back down the hill, thinking about getting around in the days before gasoline made it so easy that I can just hop in the car and drive 100 miles to visit a friend. In the canyon there are rocks. Dumped, abandoned, just hoping to be rescued. I don't know that they want to be carved, but that's what Maurice is doing with the ones he has swiped. He had help. I settle for four small ones and watch the tail of my car sink as I drop each one into the trunk. Maurice is a dreamer. He just decided one day to get a design and carve it into a piece of granite, so water streaming from his roof will hit it and flow away from the house. He's expecting rain in Lancaster? Well, I said he's a dreamer. Unlike many dreamers, he bought a hammer, a chisel, and started carving. Work is sporadic because he has other things to do. When I arrive the house is barely awakening, but as soon as his kids see me it's party time, ready or not. Before it gets hot we do some two-up skateboarding. Kite flying doesn't go well; from no wind we go to too much in about ten minutes and my parafoil crashes in someone's yard. The house is perhaps 300 feet away as the kite string dangles, but it takes 10 minutes and over a mile to drive there. In the afternoon things get quieter. Maurice and I sit on the sidewalk talking about various things. Nearby is a bucket holding sticks of colored chalk. Idly, I pick out a piece and draw tic-tac-toe on the sidewalk in front of Maurice. I hand the chalk to him. The game goes to the cat, as does the following one. Maurice draws a grid of dots and we play that game until we realize we're both too clever. So I embellish the design made by the dots and lines, then hand the chalk to him. He adds a few marks, which I then modify some more. This goes on. We hand the chalk back and forth over the growing, simple design until we're too far apart, having had to move back to allow the design to grow. What happens next is familiar. The rest of the world fades; we enter our own worlds, just looking up occasionally to see what the other is doing. We swipe tricks from each other. I steal Maurice's idea for continuing parts of the drawing seemingly under other parts. I use this technique in sand sculpture. Why didn't it occur to me now? Well, flat art is new to me. I've never enjoyed it. Before today. This is great fun. It is almost sculptural in its sweeping arm motions, its large size covering the sidewalk, its integration with the outdoors and the neighbors. They come by to look now and again, cheering us on as the warm afternoon fades into evening. A few months later, Maurice comes into my office. "Guess what, Larry?" "What's up?" "I sold the Saturn. You know what that means, right?" "Ummm.... oh, my. The driveway?" "You bet! When are you coming up?" "As soon as I get a bucket of chalk."

Top of Page Image Gallery Human Touch Museum All contents copyright 2000 by Larry Nelson lord_chaos@compuserve.com Thanks to Rich, of Monkey Wrench Productions, for the "Art-on-the-Ground" suggestion.

chalk.htm 2000 April 15