Chalk artist Erika Thurkins turned to the work of J.C. Leyendecker to create own piece for the Perry Chalking Event on Saturday.
Leyendecker was one of the preeminent American illustrators of the early 20th century. He is best known for creating The Arrow Collar Man, and 322 covers for The Saturday Evening Post – or one more than Norman Rockwell.
The festival’s theme was “The Twenties,” and it was one that Thurkins, the festival’s featured artist, embraced.
“I could not resist the urge to reproduce something out of the marvelous and rich culture of the Art Deco movement, and something by artist J.C. Leyendecker was definitely in the forefront of my mind,” she said in an email interview days before the festival.
A piece by Leyendecker “was definitely in the forefront of my mind,” said Thurkins, who due to festival cancellations due to coronavirus concerns has “found the direction of my art coming from much more personal origins.”
“So the idea of a reproduction was a little conflicting for a time,” she said.
That changed when she found an image by Leyendecker that she had never seen before and that turned out “to be perfect for the theme, personal aesthetic appeal, time to implement and as something I resonate with currently.
“I have been very into high romance and love things lately, and this fits the bill perfectly; it is such a sweet image,” she said.
Leyendecker was said to paint strong, athletic, men and lithe, feminine, women with equal ease.
Thurkins, an East Aurora resident, led a select group of professional artists in creating pastel artworks inspired by the theme “The Twenties.”
The artists created 5-by-5-foot pastel works, while Thurkins was given a 10-by-10-foot canvas under the Festival Plaza pavilion where it would have some protection from the elements. Sunday’s rain in Perry had washed most of the creations away, but Thurkins did remain.
The larger canvas allowed Thurkins to present her planned image in its entirety instead of scaling the image to only a detail of the faces. She arranged to get a head start on Friday evening and also used a technique called “pouncing” that involves creating a perforated, paper template in which she will rub chalk through onto the pavement. The technique, she said, can save about four hours off an on-site creation.
“Size and time definitely affects image choice for any event, so the impressionistic qualities of my image is reflective of that,” she said. “More detail always equals more time (this is why you will sometimes see chalk pieces done mostly with tempera paint or mostly monochromatic – these are all time-saving techniques.
“In this piece, the most detail is in the faces, so once I get that bit on point, the rest should go pretty smoothly from there.”
Thurkins won two awards at last year’s Perry Chalk Art Festival, which for 2020 changed its name and made other adjustments as a result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
The 14th summer of the chalk festival arrived about a month later than usual, adjusted its name to de-emphasize the festival part and the related programming that such a name typically is expected to bring. Several familiar activities, including a youth chalking event, were not included this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic and related requirements from the state.
The pandemic has canceled most of Thurkins’ festival appearances or shifted them to online formats where artists create work at home. Thurkins has been creating pieces in her driveway and did win a Best of Show for the online Lewiston Chalk (Your) Art Walk.
Attending festivals, Thurkins said, offers a kind of magic that can’t be captured anywhere else.
“It is a blip of beauty for the people who witness it, and really it will only ever live on in these people’s memories,” she said. “Even though we have pictures, seeing a chalk piece in person is always going to differ from what the camera picks up. That’s part of the magic of attending these festivals in person.”
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Artist embraces 'The Twenties' at Perry Chalking Event - The Daily News Online
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