essays in chalk

I’m still doubting my own decisions as to the final paper, but as usual, I’ve taken the weird, though decidedly ethnographic path. I’m trying to find the graphic narrative on a campus level, in unexpected places. So far, this has led me to the quad, where chalking is governed by more of the aspects featured in McCloud’s book than one would at first imagine. I spent close to a half hour yesterday trying to capture some of the best examples before the rain really moved in and hopefully got a good start. The most intriguing things to me are the circle of concrete on one of the bridges over the Boneyard and the long stretch of panels/concrete segments leading to transit plaza from the north side of the English building. The former had been turned into a mini-earth with a dove over it, the latter touted the merits of an informatics minor vertically across four panels.

Having talked to a few people about it, the whole process appears more complex and strategic than I’d thought, and the advertising aspect less of a centralized theme. One of my friends drew a giant dragon in front of Foellinger while advertising for Tai Kwan Do, another lamented the “longer patches” being taken up by time she got to the quad to chalk for a NOW event. And everyone, no matter what they’re chalking for, seems to end their adventure with chalk outlines of someone’s body. My freshman year, after chalking for a car wash, my friends and I did chalk outlines with Clue guesses scrawled across them (i.e. – Professor Plum, with the wrench, in the Billiard Room).

Chalking isn’t always advertising, either, which, for my part in this, is a very good thing. Sometimes poetry is scrawled over everything, circa the Montage fall submission call chalking adventure last semester. Other times, the message is one of encouragement or ridiculousness (last semester my friends chalked the sidewalks around Busey for another friend who’d been have a difficult week full of exams and drama).

I’m hoping this dive into the chalk realm works out, and that if all else fails, I can think of a few more aspects of campus culture to tear apart, McCloud style.