It wasn’t just us either. Everyone who stopped by and gazed changed from indifferent or hurried to awestruck and gazing. Groups of children on a field trip, parents rushing to the car after dropping someone off, and passing elders out for their morning stroll. I swear even the public works crew came four times during the day to admire her progress.
I did my best to keep up with the unfolding wonders and record them so that we could remember. I even managed a messy record of the day. I know this is frantic but if you watch it you will totally understand how she was able to make something from nothing.
No matter how fast I took pictures her creation still surprised and startled me. Creatures seemed to pop from nothingness into glorious color faster than I could comprehend.
First they were not there. And then they were there. I can’t explain it any better than that. Even the nature in the park knew they were witnessing something special. When Amy was drawing the dragonfly an actual dragonfly landed on her hand! And when she was finishing the swallowtail a real one fluttered across our eyes and flitted around the trees for an hour.
This was a magical day.
For a woman who only does one chalk event a year, she had an amazing sense of her self and her timing. In addition to being crazy talented, Amy is astoundingly pleasant and and easy to please, appreciative of everything we did to make her job easier. She insists our festival is the best she ever attended, Last year she had so much fun with the snake exhibits at the festival she and her husband went home and bought a snake!
I just hope there’s no place you can buy bats?
This is what the park looked like when she left that evening. She said it looked like the world because in her mind beavers could HELP the whole world. Which of course they could. I’ve been thinking of that and playing with lyrics.
We are the world
We are the beavers
We are the ones who’d make a better place with more believers…
Come today and see it completed. Come listen to music, bid on amazing goods help your child find a lost key, admire the bats and watch a crowd of people feel good about beavers for an entire day.
In all the world, in all the festivals, I have learned there is no other event quite like it.
