Chalk It Up Festival aims to ensure Sacramento’s arts community thrives for years to come

Over Labor Day weekend, thousands of people headed to Fremont Park in downtown Sacramento to see artists transform the sidewalk into living works of art.

During the annual Chalk It Up festival, organizations and individuals pay $250 to sponsor one of the 240 squares surrounding the park, and volunteer artists use the square as a blank canvas. This is the 34th year that Chalk It Up has hosted a public arts festival that raises money for local arts education for youth. Since 2012, the nonprofit has distributed more than $80,000 in grants to local schools and arts programs.

The colorful circuit features interactive arts and crafts for families and dozens of local restaurants and artisans. Event organizers said that while they are grateful for the corporate sponsorships of Taco Bell Cantina and Dignity Health, they wanted to make sure the festival was filled with local vendors selling their own work.

Vendor fees help cover the costs of hosting the event, and all proceeds from merchandise sales, donations and sidewalk sponsorships go toward grants that fund field trips, art supplies and creativity programs in Sacramento-area schools.

By Sunday afternoon, most of the pieces were well on their way to completion. Themes ranged from fine art parodies to pop culture references to Sacramento landmarks to even such obscure hints as “galactic cats.”

That’s the theme that Susan Stewart, owner of the Strapping Store, chose for her square this year. She’s sponsored Chalk It Up squares at past festivals, but this year she decided to try her hand at drawing her own work. She enlisted the help of employee Lucia Colombo, who’s also a fine art student in her final semester at Sacramento State.

Their colorful space cats caught the attention of many passersby, and the two were pleased with how their chalk creation turned out. In addition to the creative success, Stewart said she is happy to support the nonprofit’s mission.

“I think the arts are super important to a city, and if you lose them, you lose a lot of your culture and you lose a lot of your personality, and then you become formulaic like everything else,” she said. “We’re a city. We should be supporting our artists, supporting things like that, encouraging people to come out and supporting small businesses.”

Generations of artists and volunteers

For many of those responsible for organizing the event, it is a labor of love, stemming from a deep appreciation for an annual festival that has been going on for decades.

Chalk It Up executive director Christy Jourdan enjoyed the festival in the ’90s, when she and her friends would spend most of their time in the beer garden listening to live bands. Attendance has been steady as she and her group of friends have had children. In the 2010s, Jourdan began volunteering at the beer garden and has become increasingly involved over the years, eventually taking on the role of executive director in 2018.

In addition to the nonprofit’s goal of supporting new generations of artists, Jourdan is also focused on nurturing new volunteers to keep the tradition alive. She still envisions enjoying the beer garden for years to come.

“We’re slowly bringing in a new generation to do this,” she said. “I’ve told a few people we’re going to buy rocking chairs so we can sit in the beer garden and watch bands when we’re 60.”

Volunteer Shawn Peter, whose band Ghost Town Rebellion is a mainstay of the Capital Region music scene, said Chalk It Up has been one of his favorite local festivals since he started attending in his early years. He credits the festival, along with other artist-led community events like Concerts in the Park and the Farmers Market, with helping to revitalize the city’s core into what it is today.

“In the late ’80s, early ’90s, when downtown-midtown was a derelict place, the only people who moved here because it was cheap were artists,” he said. “It’s one of the oldest events that’s still going, and it’s just beautiful and family-oriented.”

The festival will end on the last day on Monday.