The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) will host the 2022 Chalk Festival, an annual event started in 1990, this year expanded to two days, Saturday, September 10 and Sunday, September 11, noon to 5 p.m., rain or shine. The festival features sidewalk artistry by professional chalk artists and local community groups, families, and individuals, all using the CMA’s south plaza and walkways that wind through the Fine Arts Garden and down to Wade Lagoon as a colorful canvas. 

The Chalk Festival is a modern expression of a Renaissance tradition from 16th-century Italy in which beggars copied paintings of the Madonna by Raphael and his contemporaries using chalk on the plazas outside cathedrals. This year, Chalk Festival’s featured artists include Héctor Castellanos Lara, Wendy Mahon and Oliver C. St. Clair, and the community is invited to take part in a chalk-drawing masterpiece and make it come alive with color.