Lazy Daze Chalk Walk 2024 

Chalk Art, Performance Art, and Street Painting in Cary

The inspiring creativity of eleven street painters from around the country take over sidewalks along Academy Street and Frantz Plaza inside Downtown Cary Park.

Their performance art of rendering artistic designs with chalk and tempera paints on streets, sidewalks, and town squares with impermanent materials is a must see.

The dazzling chalk murals will play with the kaleidoscope theme of this year’s Lazy Daze Arts & Crafts Festival. Some of these artists are best known for their dynamic 3-dimensional illusion chalk artworks. A few of the artists will be showcasing work throughout the week leading up to Lazy Daze.

Chalk Walk Artist Locations

Artist Information

 Artist Map

Background on the Tradition of Street Painting

Street painting is also known as screeving, pavement art, street art, and sidewalk art. Street painters or chalk artists, most commonly called in the US, are Madonnari which comes from the word Madonna because these street painters recreated images of the Madonna.

The Italian Madonnari have been traced to the sixteenth century. They were itinerant artists, many of whom had been brought into the cities to work on the huge cathedrals. When the work was completed, they needed to find another way to make a living, and thus often would recreate the paintings from the church onto the pavement. Aware of festivals and holy days held in each province and town, they traveled to join in the festivities to make a living from observers who would throw coins if they approved of the artist’s work. 

The origins of modern-day street painting can be traced to Britain. Pavement artists were found all over the United Kingdom and by 1890 it was estimated that more than 500 artists were making a full-time living from pavement art in London alone. The British term for a pavement artist is a “screever”. The term is derived from the writing style, often Copperplate, that typically accompanied the works of pavement artists since the 1700s. Today street painting can be seen at national and international street-painting festivals around the world.

For Cary’s first Street Painting festival this curated selection of some of our best national street painting artists was curated by local chalk and mural artist Lisa Gaither.