Plan of Salvation (Chalk Talk)

A chalk-talk is a relatively recent art form that emerged from the last generation of Christian colleges. As the story was told to me, these colleges typically did not have art departments—art being considered a superfluous subject for serious-minded young Christians. However, some professors would occasionally invite Christian artists from the community to come and illustrate their sermons or lessons on the blackboards as a visual aid to the students. Slowly, these artists gained the confidence of the students, faculty, and administration. Eventually, some of them were invited to teach a class or two in the visual arts at the college. These classes developed into the full-blown art departments that we witness today in many Reformed colleges such as Gordon, Messiah, Calvin, Concordia, Azusa Pacific, Biola, and Westmont.

Of course, these chalk drawings were erased at the end of the lesson and were not permanent, though they were often quite beautiful. By using white oil sticks on a black acrylic surface, I was able to approximate the look of chalk on a blackboard but in a more permanent way. My plan was to get the viewer, if she had attended a Christian college, to recall these transitory chalk-talks and also to document their existence since blackboards are no longer used in college classrooms. I had also hoped to honor them as an interesting art form in the development of contemporary Biblically based art.