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Chalk It Up! celebrates 30 years this weekend

Chalk It Up! creator Barbara Hughes says the sidewalk art contest creates lasting memories for the artists. ‘It’s tattooed inside their mind about how it felt and what they made — and if they won or not doesn’t really play into it.’ [KEVYN CARTER-LONG/Hendersonville Lightning]

By KEVYN CARTER-LONG, Published: July 15, 2026

Barbara Hughes is keeping Hendersonville’s America 250 celebration going as her annual Chalk It Up! sidewalk art show takes place this weekend.

“I love this country,” says Hughes, the owner of Narnia Studios, a gift shop at 408 N. Main St. “It’s just how I was raised.”

What began 30 years ago as a fun way to keep her three young kids occupied while she worked has become a decades-long, generational tradition for Hughes and the Hendersonville community.

One year, Zach, a teenaged boy Hughes was acquainted with, politely asked to sit and join her kids in their chalk drawing outside the store. A light bulb blinked on. Chalk It Up! could be for the whole town.

“He was talented,” Hughes says. “He came back pretty regularly and with a couple others.

The small-scale encounter birthed a Hendersonville tradition still thriving three decades later.

Making art with chalk “transports you back into your childhood,” Hughes says. “There was one rule at the beginning, and that rule was to have fun.”

The basics?

Hughes marks off 150 sidewalk squares on Main Street from First Avenue to Sixth Avenue — presenting each artist a “canvas” that’s 4½X4½ feet. She’ll have 150 boxes of chalk on hand for the artists. “Most years it’s me!” buying the supplies, she says, “but last year and this year the county and city underwrote it.” The youngest artist she recalls was 3, the oldest 83.

‘It’s about community’

Six days a week for 30 years, Hughes has been a downtown presence as sole proprietor of Narnia Studios. Beyond that, though, she’s always dreaming up a new promotion. Besides Chalk It Up!, she has invented the Tulip Extravaganza and the Black History Essay Contest and launched a kite festival.

Her devotion to downtown is “because it’s about community,” she says. She and her husband will show up at 6 in the morning on Saturday to number the 150 chalk-art squares, avoiding outdoor dining spaces. The contest runs from 8:30 to 11 a.m. — to avoid clogging the sidewalks during the busier time of the shopping day. (The exhibit itself has no official end; the artwork stays until rain washes it away.)

In the early years, Hughes realized that one color in demand from the young (and not so young) artists didn’t exist in commercially made boxes of chalk. So she spent an entire year leading up to the event making homemade black chalk.

“Every day I went home with stains all over me,” she recalls. “It was awful, but I thought, well, if you really need a black chalk, I have some.” (She’s relieved that black is now one of the standard colors in store-bought chalk boxes.)

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Asked to share her favorite memories over the years, she recounts several via email.

“One year, Southern Living magazine sent a photographer 11 months before our 10th Annual Chalk It Up! so it would appear in June of 2006 to celebrate the upcoming special year. It was a great spread. … For about 5 years in a row, a missionary family with five kids would make this day a part of their summer while they were here serving. … One summer, one of the older girls used her chalk art drawing as part of her portfolio and received an art scholarship to college. … A military family stationed in Japan with family in our area would plan their annual leave around Chalk It Up!”

She enjoys seeing kids who are proud to show their parents their square from years back.

“They feel a piece of ownership of Main Street that you don’t get often,” she says. “Yes, you can shop in the stores and you can be friendly with the people and all that, but they own it for that day. … It’s tattooed inside their mind about how it felt and what they made — and if they won or not doesn’t really play into it.”

Traditionally, the contest has named five winners in each age group, totaling 25 Chalk It Up! champions. This year, an additional winner will be chosen for an exceptional work in the Patriot theme Hughes calls for in honor of America 250.

The new Patriot category allows for a new person to win in their age group category, as the one chosen for the exceptional Patriot theme will be moved out of their age group competition.

Hughes set the prize at $250. Additionally, the Hendersonville Rotary Club and George Real Estate Group have donated 150 small (USA-made) American flags, adding to the red, white and blue vibe.

The America 250 theme is recommended but not required.

“You can still be in your category and draw your boat with birds and whatever you want to,” Hughes says. “Not only is it 30 (years of Chalk It Up!), it’s also the birthday of our beautiful country.”

'This is my day'

The fat, dusty sticks of pastel on Saturday will yield an amazing gallery of dogs and flowers, celebrity portraits, starry skies, stunning landscapes. Hughes will take it all in, maybe allow herself a little pride in having originated what’s believe to be one of the largest sidewalk chalk-art events anywhere.

“This is my day. I enjoy it more than they do,” she says. “We’ve all been connected through this and never will not be.”

And she knows that the communitywide event that started as an entertaining distraction for her young kids has made memories for hundreds — and will once again on Saturday morning.

“One of my favorite things,” she says, “is hearing someone walk by the shop or just pass me on the sidewalk and tell their friend, ‘That was my square’ when I did Chalk It Up!’ It gives people a sense of ownership and pride.”

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Registration is free and is first come, first served. Only registered contestants may participate. Categories are 5 & under, 6-8, 9-12, 13-20, 21 & over, and Professional. Register at narniastudios.com/chalk-it-up. Rain dates are July 25 and Aug. 1.