On a Saturday morning in mid-September, the sidewalks around Chamblee City Hall will disappear beneath a riot of color. Professional chalk artists will kneel on the pavement, grinding pastel sticks into the concrete, while children claim their own squares and families wander between booths of handmade jewelry, pottery, and paintings. It is the fifth annual Chamblee Chalk Walk & Artist Market, a free, one-day celebration that has quietly become one of the most vibrant events on the city's calendar.
The event, which runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 3518 Broad Street, is exactly what its name promises. Professional chalk artists spend the day transforming the sidewalks and streets around City Hall into sprawling, temporary masterpieces, working in a medium that is as unforgiving as it is ephemeral. A single rainstorm can erase hours of work, which is part of the appeal: chalk art exists to be admired in the moment, then gone. Alongside the professionals, a community chalk space invites everyone to leave their mark, and a chalk art competition lets amateurs of all ages claim their own sidewalk square and compete for prizes. Awards are given in categories ranging from elementary school and middle school to high school, adult, group and family, plus a Best in Show and a People's Choice honor. Every registered artist receives a bag stocked with sidewalk chalk, chalk pastels, and stickers.
The competition is run in partnership with the Georgia Chalk Artists Guild, an association of professional and emerging chalk artists dedicated to promoting chalk as a legitimate artistic medium and connecting the public with Georgia's chalk artists. Around the chalk squares, more than fifty handmade vendors set up booths selling fine art, home décor, jewelry, clothing, and other crafts, while food trucks, King of Pops, and iced coffee vendors keep the crowd fueled. Live entertainment and performing artists round out the day.
The Chalk Walk did not spring up by accident. It is the most visible product of a deliberate civic effort to make Chamblee a city that invests in creativity. As part of the city's Chamblee Arts Master Plan, Chamblee established the Chamblee Public Art Commission, a volunteer body made up of six community members, one City Council appointee, and a staff liaison, funded largely through hotel and motel fees. The commission's job is to manage public art and foster creativity — and one of its signature projects became the annual Chalk Walk.
The first Chalk Walk was held in 2022, and the event has grown dramatically since. The second annual Chalk Walk followed in 2023, and the event has settled into an early-autumn slot, with recent editions taking place in late September.
Growth has come steadily. Recent editions have featured more than 40 artist booths, and the 2024 event expanded to include a live painter, a performance art stage, and a larger community chalk space. That year, the city used grant funds from the Georgia Council for the Arts to help fund what officials called the largest Chalk Walk to date. "We're thrilled to bring the chalk walk and artist market back for its third year, bigger and better than ever," Chamblee's Public Art Coordinator Teneisha Jones said at the time. "This event is a true celebration of art, and we hope you will join us for an unforgettable day in the heart of our city."
The Chalk Walk is also a showcase for how much downtown Chamblee has changed. The city, incorporated in 1908 as a small rail town and now home to nearly 30,000 residents across more than seven square miles, spent decades known for its "Antique Row" of shops. In recent years, that reputation has given way to a bustling restaurant scene, and the Chalk Walk takes full advantage of it. Attendees can wander from the chalk squares to nearby eateries like Vintage Pizzeria, Gus's Fried Chicken, Hopstix, Southbound, BlueTop, Antiguo Lobo, The Frosty Caboose, and Himalayas Indian Restaurant, all within a walkable radius of City Hall.
The event also benefits from a relatively new civic amenity: Chamblee's open container district. Since June 1, 2023, the city has allowed outdoor alcohol consumption in its downtown entertainment district, making it one of the latest Atlanta-area municipalities to do so. During the Chalk Walk, adults can purchase beer, wine, or coffee from licensed establishments and carry it with them as they stroll the chalk squares, as long as it is served in a clearly marked plastic cup and consumed between 9 a.m. and 10 p.m. Beer and wine are limited to 16 fluid ounces and distilled spirits to 12 ounces, and visitors cannot bring their own alcohol. Attendees may bring their own food, though coolers must be small enough to fit under a chair and no larger than 30 quarts, and bags and coolers are subject to search.
Getting there is part of the appeal. Downtown Chamblee has embraced transit-oriented development, and the business district is an easy walk from the Chamblee MARTA Station on the Gold Line. Organizers encourage visitors to take the train, ride-share, or walk rather than drive, since parking in the district is limited. A designated rideshare park at 5374 Peachtree Road serves as the pickup and drop-off point for Lyft and Uber. For those who do drive, street parking is available on Plaza Way, Irvingdale Way, Ingersoll Rand Drive, and nearby streets, with a handful of handicapped spots in the City Hall lot. There are no road closures for the event.
What makes the Chalk Walk endure, year after year, is the way it turns a public space into a shared canvas. The sidewalks of Chamblee City Hall are not a gallery with white walls and climate control; they are a place where anyone can kneel down and draw, where a child's first chalk sun sits beside a professional's intricate mural, and where the whole thing will be washed away by the next rain. That impermanence is the point. For one day each September, Chamblee's streets become a celebration of creativity and community, free to everyone, and proof that a city's investment in art can pay off in the most colorful way imaginable.