http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/08/AR2010070801831.html

THE WASHINGTON POST

CORCORAN CHALK ART
Artist re-creates works in chalk on sidewalk near Corcoran Gallery of Art

Friday, July 9, 2010
If you need something more than Eadweard Muybridge’s 19th-century photos or Chuck Close’s modern prints to draw you into the Corcoran’s free summer Saturdays this weekend, maybe chalk artist David Ibata can lure you.

In the blazing hot sun, holding a copy of Albert Bierstadt’s “The Last of the Buffalo” and kneeling on a small cushion, with a few pieces of chalk, a brush and a 32-ounce bottle of Gatorade, Ibata recently copied the Bierstadt painting on the street corner outside the museum. A graduate of the Corcoran School of Art and the New York Academy of Art, specializing in figurative oil painting, the 25-year-old D.C. native sketched the drawing with care as people walked by, some occasionally stopping to compliment his work.

“Did you make this?” one kid asked pointing to the faded copy of John Singleton Copley’s portrait of Thomas Amory II that Ibata copied the previous weekend. “It’s really good! I like it,” the child concluded before moving up the street.

Another woman didn’t even notice Ibata’s work and almost walked over Amory’s head. “Excuse me, do you know where Pennsylvania Avenue is?” she asked him.

There’s something romantic about a lonely artist on the street devoting as many as six hours to a work that will vanish with the first good rain. It’s a little frustrating, Ibata admitted, but then that’s part of being an artist in the first place, he said. On the other hand, “you get a fresh start every week.”

Ibata picks a different piece of art from the Corcoran Gallery to re-create each week. He chose Bierstadt’s painting of a Native American killing a buffalo, he said, because he thought it would be a challenge, and indeed later, as he worked on the background, he grumbled about not being able to get it quite right.

As Ibata smeared the colors with his fingers, a crowd formed for a few minutes, and a couple of people pulled out their cameras.

“He got skills!” one woman noted.

“That’s tight!” another resounded.

Then they moved on, and it was just the artist and his concrete canvas once more.

— Moira E. McLaughlin

Where is it? At New York Avenue and 17th Street NW, next to the Corcoran at 500 17th St. NW. Canceled for rain.

How much is it? Free to check out the chalk drawings. The museum is also free on Saturdays in the summer. On Wednesday-Friday and Sundays, Corcoran admission is $10, $8 for seniors and free for kids 12 and younger. The museum is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.