What to Know
- The 30th Annual Pasadena Chalk Festival will happen on June 17 and 18, 2023
- The Plaza at the Pasadena Convention Center
- Free; over 500 artists are expected to create some 200 artworks on the pavement
A stroke of colorful chalk is never quite set in stone, or upon concrete, rather, if you happen to be specifically talking about the works created by madonnari, those talented artists who create pictures directly on the pavement.
You can, in short, start again, with a few deft chalk strokes, creating a new picture that still feels as fun and vibrant as the one you saw in your head.
Similarly, a large-scale event devoted to the chalk arts can also change, much like an artist adds changes to a picture as she goes.
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The Pasadena Chalk Festival, the long-running Father's Day Weekend celebration, had unfurled at The Paseo, the shopping destination just off Colorado Boulevard, for several years; there were a few virtual events during the early part of the pandemic, too, with online showings in both 2020 and 2021.
The 2021 online festival popped up in the fall rather than June, boasting a delightful Día de los Muertos theme.
Now a new Crown City spot is in the works for the festival's 30th anniversary, and quite close to where the festival was previously held: Artists and fans will want to make for The Plaza at the Pasadena Convention Center in 2023.
Beyond the address update, the festival will still observe a two-day time frame. Artists will begin working on the morning of Saturday, June 17 with a final wrap-up for most participants afternoon of Sunday, June 18.
During that time, attendees will watch colorful pictures on the ground start to take fanciful shape, with some pieces paying tribute to famous artists or masterpieces and others creating quirky optical illusions.
Attending the popular holiday weekend event is totally free, no ticket is required.
The area outside the Pasadena Convention Center isn't unknown to returning festival artists, who may have created chalk masterpieces there in the past.
Keep tuned into more chalk talk about the upcoming festival, which has been a sunny staple of Father's Day Weekend in Southern California over the last three decades.
