About Us

Chalk It Up’s mission is to empower and support the next generation of Sacramento artists through targeted art grants for young artists and the programs that inspire them.

“Chalk It Up to Sacramento It’s the Chalk of the Town,” better known as Chalk It Up, was first established in 1991 through the hard work of local artists and community art supporters who wanted to bring the transient beauty of Madonnari, the Italian tradition of street painting, to Sacramento.  They held the first Chalk It Up Festival at what is now known as Cesar Chavez Park. In 1993, Chalk it Up received its non-profit status and moved the festival to its current home at Fremont Park in Midtown, Sacramento.

As a non-profit arts organization, we are best known for the Chalk It Up! Chalk Art & Music Festival, a three-day celebration of local artists and the arts community. This festival, one of the last of the free, family-friendly festivals in Midtown Sacramento, has seen a remarkable increase in visitors over the last three years. With hundreds of artists creating sidewalk chalk murals, dozens of local artisans and makers, local food and treat vendors, a beer garden, and a diverse line-up of live local musicians and DJs, the festival is a true reflection of the diverse and inclusive Sacramento art scene. It’s the way that approximately 40k people, from all walks of life, choose to celebrate their Labor Day Weekend.

In addition to the festival, we provide mini-grants through the Chalk It Up Grant Program, providing much-needed gap-filling funding to help schools, teachers, and youth programs fund their arts education programs.  Every spring, we host the High School Self-Portrait Show, a juried gallery show to showcase our region’s talented high school artists.  The 2nd Saturday Opening Reception awards are presented to the young artists and their teachers. They include cash prizes for the student artists in categories such as “Best in Show” and “Best in Medium” and corresponding grants for their teachers to purchase classroom supplies.

Chalk It Up is a testament to the power of community. We have no full-time staff,  but our operations are overseen by our Executive Board and Executive Director. The success of the Chalk It Up Festival, the grants, and the student art show is made possible by the generous support of our volunteers, donors, community partners, and sponsors. Their contributions, both in labor and funding, are not just appreciated, but they are the backbone of our organization, integral to our mission and the reason we can continue to empower and support the next generation of Sacramento artists.

MISSION

To empower and support the next generation of Sacramento artists through targeted art grants for young artists and the programs that inspire them.

EQUITY

Our non-profit organization is deeply rooted in the principle of equity and is dedicated to serving all community members.

• We recognize our duty to amplify the voices of the most marginalized in our community.  
• We will cultivate a safe and empowering environment for every community member at our programs and annual festival.
• We will ensure that our volunteers, artists, staff, and the education community we serve feel valued, accepted, and supported.
• We work to remove the predictability of exposure to arts education that correlates with an individual’s social, cultural, or ethnic identity.
• With our community’s financial support, we will keep the Chalk It Up Festival FREE to the public.

Street painting, using chalk as the medium, is an Italian tradition that is believed to have begun during the 16th century. It is called “Madonnari” because of their practice of reproducing the image of the Madonna (Our Lady). The early Italian street painters were travelers who would arrive in small towns and villages for Catholic religious festivals and transform the streets and public squares into temporary galleries for their works of art. The Chalk It Up Festival honors this tradition and celebrates the transient beauty of this medium.

Land Acknowledgement

The Chalk It Up Festival takes place on the unceded and ancestral lands of the Nisenan and Miwok people. We acknowledge the Nisenan and Miwok people who came before us and walked alongside us, and we are grateful for their many contributions. We recognize the past, present, and ensuing cultural bearers and stewards of the land and waterways we share. We are dedicated to assisting and developing relationships with our Indigenous neighbors to ensure healthy landscapes and waterways for many generations.

We thank Steven Hutchason, Tribal Historic Preservation Officer (THPO) in the Cultural Preservation Department at Wilton Rancheria, and Chalk It Up board member Sabrina Garcia for drafting this statement.  To learn more, visit wiltonrancheria-nsn.gov. 

ABOUT THE CHALK IT UP CHALK ART & MUSIC FESTIVAL

The Chalk It Up! Chalk Art & Music Festival is a three-day celebration of local artists and the arts community — one of the last of the free, family-friendly festivals in Midtown Sacramento.

Since 1991, we have hosted a safe and clean festival at Fremont Park at 16th & Q Streets in Midtown Sacramento where the community can listen to live local musicians, patronize local craft, maker, and food vendors in the marketplace, and watch local artists turn the sidewalks around Fremont Park into colorful works of art. This is part performance art, as the artists are creating the work during the festival. Community members come from throughout the greater Sacramento Valley region several times over the 3-day weekend to watch the art work come to life. Kids of all ages are inspired after a walk around the outside of the park to admire the work of these professional artists, so we supply buckets of sidewalk chalk for folks to use to experiment on the interior walkways of the park.

The Chalk It Up Festival is a Sacramento tradition, a gift to the community, and with the help and and partnership of our generous sponsors and donors we’ve kept it 100 percent free to the public for over three decades!

ARTS EDUCATION GRANTS

Our Chalk It Up Grant Program offers grants to schools and organizations in need of funding for youth arts education programs. We fund mostly Title 1 schools on a biannual grant application cycle so that funding is coordinated with the Spring and Fall school semesters. Art departments in schools are typically underfunded. Chalk It Up Grants are often used to purchase much needed art supplies and while also allowing teachers and students to explore new mediums.

HIGH SCHOOL SELF PORTRAIT SHOW

Each spring we invited High School art teachers throughout the area to assign a self-portrait project to their students and submit the top 2-3 works from their class for this annual show. We sponsor a gallery exhibit for a month, and host a 2nd Saturday Artists’ and Art Teachers’ Reception that is open to the public. Local artists, educators, and the Chalk It Up Board judges the show and awards medals to the best works.  In 2024 a total of $3,000 in cash prizes were given to the award winning artists, and $3,000 in grants was given to their teachers.