Finally

I am obsessed with Ellis G.'s sidewalk art. He has spent the summer creating pieces like this, using chalk and the shadows created along the sidewalks of my neighborhood. And, as I've been able to learn online, some adjacent Brooklyn neighborhoods. Time Out NY did a piece on him back in June:

If you've been hitting the strip along Brooklyn's Smith Street lately, you may have noticed the chalk sidewalk drawings outlining the shadows of utility poles—all signed ©ELLIS G. It turns out they have an only-in–New York back story. About a month ago, artist Ellis Gallagher, 31, was mugged in the foyer of his Cobble Hill home. "I saw this shadow on the front door," he recalls. "It was this guy with a two-foot-long machete saying, 'Gimme your money!'"

The thief made off with $82. Gallagher called the cops, who caught the perp later that night. End of story, if not for an admitted case of posttraumatic stress. "I'd jump every time I saw a shadow," Gallagher says. "That's when I started the drawings—as self-medication."

Since I got my new camera, I've been carrying it around hoping for a good example to post here. The bikes are my favorite - the intricacy of the spokes are beautiful - and he seems to have been focusing on more bikes in the past week or so. The difficulty in getting a good pic, of course, is that chalk disappears - shoes, delivery carts, rain, stores with diligent sidewalk cleansing routines. Ellis G. has started signing his art with copyrights for 2006 & 2007, and one blogger suggested that it's to give it a future presence that it otherwise wouldn't have.

Note: I don't know what all of those black dots are, but you see them randomly on the sidewalks, esp. on corners. My theory is that they are wads of gum that get welded into the concrete over time. I could be wrong - but they are all over this picture.