San Rafael, California 2001.

The birthplace of my unexpected and exciting streetpainting adventure. San Rafael is a small town in Marin County, just north of San Francisco and Sausalito. Since 1996 I was a frequent visitor of the SF Bay Area to recharge from business as usual and reconnect with old and newly made friends along the way.

It must have been during my 5th or 6th annual ‘retreat’ in the year 2000 or 2001, that my new American friend Gilda from Sausalito (whom I knew from my volunteer work at the Institute of Noetic Sciences) and her friend Allen from San Rafael (who had family living in Holland) took me to an annual art festival in San Rafael one day.

The festival was in support of schools, raising funds for them so that they could keep Art classes on the curriculum. And chalk art was their way to do just that.

I walked right into what I learned was an Italian Street Painting Festival. Named after the country of origin, Italy, that apparently had brought forth this historical, particular and ephemeral art form, many centuries ago. Practitioners of this art form, were called Madonnari (‘they who paint the holy madonna‘), using chalks as their main medium of creation. And for those in ancient times who were not allowed in or could not go to church. At least so the story goes. More about that in another Spotlight story about my Gesso Documentary project.

The festival area consisted of two main streets that were closed off for three days for daily traffic, a little square with a podium, many little stands where food & beverages were sold, and really hundreds of participants, from all ages and walks of life, competing in different categories, flocking the street, working on their art pieces on freshly layed pitch black asphalt, that almost seemed to melt under the hot Californian sun. What a spectacle to witness!

Needless to say, I was inspired to put it mildly. I had never seen anything like it before. Not in Holland, nor anywhere else. Not even in Italy. All that work, all those fantastic works of art, created in a day or two, merely with fine pastels. To be washed away by the local Fire Dept. the morning after the festival had ended. Leaving nothing else than the pictures and memories.

We spent a couple of hours there and then went on our way again. I only took half a dozen of pictures as a tangible reminder, I have no idea why I did not take more. Little did I know how contagious this Chalk Fever, that most certainly was going around there and then, actually was. And once I got home, I realised that I had gotten it too. And that I was able to shake it off. Nor did I want to.

And so my streetpainting adventure had begun…