The three day Chalk It Up! Festival starts tomorrow in Sacramento. That's the annual, Labor Day Weekend event where people draw chalk art on the sidewalk squares at Fremont Park in midtown.
Jerry Perry is Chalk It Up's executive director. On Insight with Beth Ruyak he described it as being like a temporary, outdoor gallery.
"When you walk the perimeter of Fremont Park, and there's 230 squares, you don't know what you're going to see," says Perry. "You're going to fantastic art, you're going to see rudimentary art, you're just going to get this array of styles and colors and it's amazing. But when you walk into the park, every bit of concrete is covered with somebody doing something colorful with chalk art."
More than 200 volunteer artists will be taking part, including Sue Cham who started with the Chalk It Up! Festival 21 years ago. She says creating sidewalk chalk art can be physically grueling.
"But you figure out interesting ways to, maybe bring something that you can lean on with your belly so that you're not on your chalk art that you've already completed," says Cham. "People bring gardening pads. You can see the yoga people out there and they're usually the smiling ones."
This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Chalk It Up! Festival. The event, which also includes performances by a variety of local bands, is a fundraiser to pay for youth education programs in local schools.
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