Driveway Chalk Fairy
Weird string of words. Chalk Driveway Fairy? Fairy drawn on driveway with chalk? Usually the order that words should go in is intuitive. This one is not.
Anyhow.
I drew a chalk fairy in the driveway. I wanted it to be distorted so that it would look “correct” when viewed from the sidewalk at the end of the driveway. It is a bit hard to understand the proportions in these photos but the top of her head is 26-1/2 feet from the sidewalk. If you look closely in some of the photos you can see chalk and other points of reference.
That was as far as I made it the first day due to the cold.
Even with some un-forecasted rain overnight she held up pretty well.
The rest of this is personal stuff that has very little to do with art if you want to stop reading now.
I have for a while now been envious of the enthusiasm of small children. I love to see a kid with anything proudly proclaiming “I did a good job on this!”. For a while now I have been watching that and wondering what happened to me that I never felt like that kid.
I couldn’t remember a time in my life when I had that kind of confidence in what I had done.
I think it had become one of my detrimental “all statements”. I’m never that proud of myself for my accomplishments.
When I find negative all statements in my life I try to ferret them out, disprove them and rid myself of them.
I realized that there are lots of times at work when I will be really happy with a tattoo that I have finished and I will call to the other artists “come look at what I made”.
I found other instances where I was proud of myself even if I didn’t say anything to anyone (“I ran 5k this morning without stopping on a day when I didn’t even want to get out of bed.”). I found that sometime there were drawings that I thought “I am really happy with the way that one came out.” and so on and so forth.
I was pretty pleased with this chalk drawing. I could see flaws in it, but it was much larger than the other ones that I have done and a good deal of the distortion is in her face. I hadn’t realized how difficult an obstacle that was going to be and while I didn’t think it was perfect – I was pretty pleased with all that I had overcome to make it happen.
I decided to celebrate that feeling of accomplishment and post her online. I posted her on my instagram, my personal facebook and a town facebook page. I got a lot of really positive feedback and one of my friends posted her in a closed group that I am not in (with my permission) and she got several thousand likes and a bunch of reposts. It was gratifying.
Then there was Kevin. On the town facebook page a guy named Kevin decided that I was of dubious moral character because I had signed my instagram name on the drawing instead of “doing something nice without being selfish about it”. A bunch of people came to my defense and when they did Kevin had to up his game by attacking me and my business for totally random things to “prove” what an asshole I am. I had to stop following the thread.
I’m not going to lie. My feelings were hurt.
The internet is like that.
I have to remember that there are always going to be angry people on the internet. I have to try to not take it personally. And most importantly I have to protect the little girl inside of me who really wants to be proud of the things that she has done. I want to nurture and protect her so that she comes out more often.
Why bring all of this up? Because I am working on being honest about my fears and who I am as a person. Because I want people to know that there are real live humans with feelings at the other end of internet troll attacks. But mostly because I want to again thank all of the wonderful supportive humans that I have in my life. Both in the real and the virtual world.
You keep me going.
You help me protect that little girl inside of me.
You are helping me survive quarantine.
Thank you and much love to all of you.
Protect your Small Self. Do something fun with them that makes your heart sing. Don’t let the Kevins get to you.
Here is what she looked like two days later after a hard rain overnight. I am planning for the next one now. Haven’t decided what it should be….
Just TeeJay's Blog 
Kevin is a petty, jealous butthead. I wish people would follow what my mother always told me “if you can’t say anything nice, say nothing at all.” I always try to say something positive to people; yes, even strangers. I tell complete strangers “I love your hair”, “those are cool shoes”, or “that color is beautiful on you”. Why? Because you don’t know what is going on in someone else’s life. Maybe your kind words will be the only nice words they hear all day, and it only takes a second to say them. I love your chalk drawings. I follow you on Facebook, too. I also love the monster on the door you painted. You are very talented. I have four tattoos from White Tiger. When the world returns to normal, I’d love to have you do a tattoo of my Mama cat and her son.
Thank you Donna ❤
Since when are artist not allowed to sign their work?? If Picasso and Chagall can sign their stuff then why can’t you?! Just because it is in chalk? Or was he motivated by jealousy? Either way this was a very welcome bit of beauty that you gifted to the world. You should be proud of the way it turned out. In the grander scheme of things Kevin doesn’t count unless you allow him to. (I’m voting that you don’t let him drive your emotional bus, he’s got no ticket and you are behind the wheel – boot him off)
I think he just likes to be contrary on the internet. A few people had said that he does it frequently in a lot of groups. Honestly I didn’t care that he went after me for signing my work, it was the subsequent nastiness that bothered me. The next chalk piece I did put my signature over on the side of the piece so that it is visible to people who see it in person, but not in the photos that I posted. I will be over Kevin shortly and I am sure he has already forgotten about me and moved on to torment someone else.
[…] After the door was finished I started another chalk drawing on my driveway. While it was still cold out it was much warmer than when I made the heart. More photos and info on another post here: Sidewalk Chalking in Quarantine […]