The Chalk Bandits
by Audrey
I received an email from the mother of one of my students last week, directing me to a news story involving her son. He and two other area youth created a mural in downtown Mount Clemens, in a public space by a fountain. They used sidewalk chalk – the chunky kind that you’d buy for a child’s birthday party; the kind that washes away with plain water. While they were working, bypassers were commenting on their work. The students encouraged them to take part. The people who joined them came from all walks of life, including, at one point, a member of the Mount Clemens Downtown Development Authority. It was one of those rare unplanned, unannounced occurrences where, for a brief time, a community came together to create something, just because they could.
I’ve taken part in similar actions with my students. Once, in the early hours of the morning, we blanketed the streets of Ann Arbor in chalk silhouettes as part of The Shadow Project, in remembrance of Hiroshima. The following year, we did a similar project in Detroit with cornstarch and water. People we didn’t know picked up brushes and joined us. Last year, we helped plan a “Chalk and Talk†at Wayne State University, inviting people to write something or to grab our bullhorn and step onto our soapbox to speak. The soapbox is a crudely painted recycled wooden crate that belongs to another of my students; she hauls it to various public events in Detroit. It’s nothing fancy - when it’s not being used as a soapbox, it holds her music collection. She doesn’t require people to clear their words with her before speaking. She simply wants them to express themselves, to tell each other what they are thinking. She wants to create dialog.
There’s a street in Detroit, Heidelberg Street, where a local artist has taken over the sidewalks, vacant lots, and a small children’s park. Tyree Guyton started The Heidelberg Project over 20 years ago, painting polka dots across the landscape, and building sculptures from recycled materials. The project draws over a quarter of a million visitors each year. There’s no charge to enter; it’s just a public place that has been transformed through his vision into a gathering spot. Strangers there talk to each other.
Twice, the city of Detroit has bulldozed sections of the project, claiming it was a blight on the city. Twice, Tyree has rebuilt, and he continues to expand it with the help of area school children and adult volunteers. Across the street from the project are vacant buildings that need to be torn down, but the city hasn’t removed them. The folks from the project occasionally mark vacant buildings throughout Detroit with a large circle of paint, the iconic polka dot which has caused so much distress to our public officials.
Drive through the city and you’ll see these dots – a sort of cultural short-hand for “This one here needs tearing down, why don’t you bulldoze this?†I suspect the answer is that they’re not as concerned about the blight so much as the radical concept that the commons exist to be used. Not unobtrusively passed through, but actually used.
Such is the case in Mount Clemens, where these three artists are facing misdemeanor charges for defacing public property. The property wasn’t “defaced†by the chalk, though. What they defaced was the myth that only professional artists for hire can create art in public spaces, and only after it’s been submitted for review and authorized in writing from the top down. Matthew Abel, of the National Lawyer’s Guild, has offered to represent all three students pro bono.
As a teacher and parent, I’ve come across some peculiar notions of what it means to be “well-behaved.†It’s sometimes synonymous with not being noticed – in other words, having no deviation from the norm. Misbehaving is perceived as what happens when we wander into the extremes of our community’s bell curve. We’re offended when immigrants don’t speak the “right†language. Homeowners Associations ensure that our homes look like our neighbors’, and a door painted orange or a zucchini growing in the front yard is cause for alarm. In schools, we have “standardized†tests to ensure that we’re all learning the same information at the same pace, and can regurgitate it back in identical ways.
Sometimes misbehaving means deviating from rules, regardless of whether those rules have merit or not. A child who follows orders is good; a child with a mind of their own is bad, and it’s important to train them young because when we grow older, a good employee is one who can follow the rules. An effective parent or teacher is someone who can make their children obey them. We have television shows to teach us how to do this. Educator and author Alfie Kohn writes: Supernanny’s superficiality isn’t accidental; it’s ideological. What these shows are peddling is behaviorism. The point isn’t to raise a child; it’s to reinforce or extinguish discrete behaviors–which is sufficient if you believe, along with the late B.F. Skinner and his surviving minions, that there’s nothing to us other than those behaviors.â€
Most parents I know have a rule about not drawing on walls. Most children I know have gotten in trouble for breaking that rule. I drew on mine when I was supposed to be taking a nap once – I made a glorious scribbly masterpiece, cleverly placed behind the door of my bedroom, so when my mother swung open the door to check on me, my work would be hidden. She found it immediately. My daughter was a wall-drawer. We gave her washable markers. The children who used to live here before me drew on walls. Inside our front closet, there is an up and a down button made of crayon, at just above knee level. Drawing on large surfaces is a basic human need. Food, water, shelter, drawing on large surfaces – I am pretty sure that’s the list. It wouldn’t surprise me if those white boards that line America’s cubicles function as cave paintings on some level.
This is why I let kids write poems in permanent marker on the walls of my classroom. It’s why, when a student last year asked if she could paint on my wall, I said yes. We need to spend more time drawing on walls, and less time taking standardized tests. I’m not really interested in living in communities where people can use the commons - so long as they have no impact whatsoever on their neighborhood or on their neighbors. I’m even less interested in training students to not leave their mark on the world.
The Buffalo In Da' Midst:
Stan:
It is also the case in Santa Cruz California, where the chalking tends to be more political, with artistic overtones…
See:
The War on Sidewalk Art
The Hopscotch Rebellion
By BECKY JOHNSON
…and the laws tend towards authoritarian/unconstitutional with overtones of ‘progressive’ economic demands (read: gentrification & tourism industry)
Leigh
4 August 2007, 2:26 pmskol:
That was wonderful, especially for us bitter students like me ;). What I want to know is why are friends so often separated in classrooms, and why do I have to be there at all? All the info that teachers take months to learn can be found on the internet and taken at your own pace anyhow… not that we’re taught to look. And teachers haven’t been taught to look, and parents haven’t been taught to look, and it all gets rolled up in the flimsy excuse that we’re being prepared for the adult world (my problem with this as THE purpose is that the adult world is something teachers, parents, and students generally know anyhow (you get a job, it’s probably draining*, you make money)… What the heck could we be missing?). OK, thousand-times heard rant over.
On a side but related note, maybe authors should have the total freedom of scribbling with their own font and color. Then we can tell them apart more easy :p
* And when it ISN’T draining, it seems you need more specific skills not taught in school anyhow. Y’know… yer own thing.
5 August 2007, 4:24 pmAudrey:
buffalo, thanks for the link - that may prove useful.
skol, I haven’t got a good answer on why you need to be in class … I teach high school, but I never got a high school diploma or GED. I suppose the proper answer is that you don’t need to be there. There are other options, though I would push people considering dropping out to put some thought into how to design an alternative experience that is meaningful.
Incidentally, both the soapbox girl and at least one of the bandits have spent extended periods of time outside of a traditional classroom. Coincidence?
5 August 2007, 8:31 pmAudrey:
I’m posting a better link to the Alfie Kohn piece I referenced above. The original link went to the Nation, which requires a subscription. The full article is available here: http://www.alfiekohn.org/parenting/supernanny.htm
It’s worth the read, especially if you interact with children, either as a teacher or as a parent.
6 August 2007, 10:06 pmvirus:
In a society that is more and more defined by what we watch on reality TV, these kids made a statement. They did not set out to make a statement, nor were they aware they were making a statement, but they made a statement anyway. It is up to us to define it for them. It is not up to the artist to give the work its meaning, it is up to the ’reviewers’ of the work. The audience ‘tells’ the artist what the work means. The artist invests the time, the energy, the creativity and makes their presentation. The feedback generated by the work creates a context in which to view it. The success of the work can be gauged by how successful it is in the way it prods us, provokes us, how engaged we all become with the dialogue it starts. By the looks of it, they made some great art. They made art in the tradition Jackson Pollack, who threw paint in the face of the art establishment, the same establishment who now prostrate themselves like submissive dogs because of the huge amounts of money to be made; in the tradition of Andy Warhol who took a soup can and dropped it on the toes of an unknowing public; and in the tradition of Tyree Guyton, whose big colorful circles sit in stark contrast to the blighted homes that is his canvas. A community is now engaged in a discussion that would never have taken place without them. The Chalk Bandits? Phooey. A lot more like Robin’s band of merry men. No, strike that. There is no taking involved. A lot more like Santa Claus. Giving without asking anything in return. Giving with no idea of the far reaching effects their gift would have. In the same way a child sits on the sidewalk in front of their house, takes a piece of chalk and makes their mark on the world, they sat in a public place, a commons, and made their mark. So now the city upon which they made their mark is ‘discussing’ it. Only art can create such a debate, only art can generate such emotion. What a cool thing to do.
8 August 2007, 7:23 pmI'm my own Dog:
We are sent to school to learn to be good little cogs in the Big Machine. The purpose of the Big Machine is to push wealth upward. If you do not support pushing wealth upward into the hands of the very few, then you are not a good little cog. If you are not a good little cog, then instead of having a little, you will have less than a little. Remember to get up early (unlike the very few) and work until long after you are tired. You are taught these things from the time you are very young. Early bird gets the worm! The good little cog is an early bird. The very few do not want the worm. The very few shall have the best fruits … free of worms … and they shall have them from the efforts of the good little cogs. Finding ‘your own thing’ may not bring the biggest cash rewards, but it sure feels good not eating worms. It feels even better not pushing too much wealth upwards into the hands of the very few. Boycott Walmart, Exxon/Mobile and the Stock Exchanges. Don’t be good little cogs! Learn the most important thing … to THINK FOR YOURSELF!
10 August 2007, 11:10 pmLinda c:
My son and I are going to a “chalking” at the Clinton Library in Little Rock next Saturday. Their sidewalks are good for something!
It is a fundraiser for The Thea Foundation. It raises money for arts programs around Arkansas. It is called “Thea Paves the Way”. She - Thea - was a young lady that was killed in an auto accident. Her father has taken up the fight to keep arts in the schools - because that is what she loved.
Pretty Cool I think! And my son loves it.
7 September 2007, 3:59 pmk. lang:
Does anybody know what happened to the chalk bandits? Where they charged? I am currently fighting with the landlord of my apartment complex. I was charged for drawing a Halloweens mural the wall of my porch.
20 November 2007, 5:40 pmAudrey:
The follow-up from this: The artists, on their lawyer’s advice, decided that if the city wouldn’t drop the case, they’d go all out and demand a jury trial. They went to trial yesterday and were all acquitted. http://www.macombdaily.com/stories/031408/loc_local01.shtml
This is the second local art case resolved in favor of artists this month - another legal battle has been going on for over 2 years regarding a local artist who painted a 1,100-square-foot mural of Michelangelo’s “Creation of Man” on the outside of his own studio, with the word “Love” on it. The city had issues with a bare breast showing (which the artist resolved by painting a gown over it), and with the letters, which apparently violate the city’s sign ordnance. The city is deciding whether to appeal to the State Supreme Court to get that pesky word Love removed from our public spaces.
14 March 2008, 8:27 am