Chalk artist gears up for Ann Arbor Art Fair, celebrates inner child expression

It’s that time of year again, Ann Arbor streets are filling with more colors than the blue and yellow with Art Fair taking over.

Nearly 1,000 artists will be featured in the annual, citywide event. The mediums range from jewelry, graphic artists, glass works and more. One of the featured artists is David Zinn. Being a chalk artist, his medium is any street, wall, or sidewalk that sparks inspiration.

VIDEO: Watch David Zinn draw an octopus with chalk

“Chalk is something we all drew with at some point and we tend to have it just sort of lying around,” said David. He added, "it is a very childish tool for making art, which is the best way for me to access the kid part of my brain.”

Twenty years ago, David began letting his inner child take creative control to procrastinate working on his then, actual job. He was a freelance graphic artist.

“But all of that was on a computer and I wanted an excuse to be outside on a nice day, because in Michigan when we have a nice day, it really is a moral imperative that you find some way to get outside and enjoy it,” David explained.

He hasn’t stopped since. 7 News Detroit caught up with David in front of the Ann Arbor Post Office. It’s where he’ll be set up for Art Fair. He already started making his mark on a nearby wall. He’d drew a flying pig, a character that pops up in his works often, named Philomena.

“She’s a flying pig, also known as pigasus,” said David. He said third graders gave him that name.

He added, “we used to have a lot of people saying ‘well that’ll happen when pigs fly’, which is a weird phrase because it’s only used to be discouraging. The image of a fly pig is an inherently cheerful image it means the opposite.” "St. Philomena is listed in some lists of saints as the saint of impossible causes,” David said.

While talking with David, Post Office sprinklers threatened to wash Philomena away just as David starting the finishing touches. Knowing the majority of his art won’t last forever is David’s favorite aspect of his medium.

“Because we don’t think about it much, we don’t talk about it much. The fun part of art is making art. All the other parts. The taking it home and finding a place to put it and putting a frame around it and trying to sell it,” said David.

He continued, “all those other things are necessary but they aren’t fun. It’s actually where most of the anxiety comes from is trying to preserve things. Letting go of it — just enjoying the process of doing it and then walking away is much more therapeutic I found than any other art that I’ve made.”

David does have a work that not only withstands the rain, it looks even better in it. It’s a permanent mural on the side of the Post Office. It incorporates a lamp post obstructing the blank wall. The lamp post in part is why that wall stayed blank until David came up with the idea to recreate the infamous Singing in the Rain scene where Gene Kelly sings the namesake song and swings on a lamp post.

“Having a drawing which sticks around in the rain, especially considering the content of the drawing, and can be visited for years and years, that’s deeply gratifying,” said David.

Painting that mural did come with some catchy drawbacks, "that was the dangerous part. I had that song stuck in my head for an entire week while I was painting this —could not get the song out of my head,” David said.

Like his recent, and biggest work where he turned two man-hole covers on Main Street into two big monster eyes interacting with people walking by, he hopes people join in on the fun during Ann Arbor’s Art Fair.

“One of the greatest things about having a chalk art demo is at least half the people when they see you doing it, they want to do it themselves,” said David.

It’s especially gratifying, he says, when adults roll up their sleeves and get their hands dirty.

“It’s a wonderful thing to see the adults who are hanging back like 'ehh I can’t draw, I’ve never been able to draw' and then slowly and quietly ... maybe they reach out and try a little something and by the end, they’re back in their kid brain, which is a good place to be.”