Hunting and Gathering
The hunting and gathering instinct is a powerful mechanism. It’s an instinct that has survived from our earliest ancestors’ drive for food and shelter. Today, we still hunt and gather – we shop – not just for survival but to create for ourselves a place – a personal world of spirit and beauty.
Hunting and gathering – shopping – is not work or laborious for me, it is more like visiting a museum or attending theater. It takes place in the public sphere – the world market – the global community. Like a gallery installation – each stall, store, and market is dramatically different. Each of these designed spaces inspires me.
To make life more beautiful, that is the intention of chalk! To bring to the community the results of my daily hunting and gathering – items I have found from all over the world, to one place for you to discover.
Placement is art! Everyone is creative – an artist – just the way they arrange their space: the way they set up their table, dresser, closets, shelves, desk. It all makes a statement. Add a picture, a vase, a stone, a basket and you have a vignette, a scene, a world.
chalk is the place where I set up my vignettes and inspired you to do the same.
So many people tell me they either hate to shop, or have no time, or don't know where to look! You can come into chalk to find merchandise and ideas to surround yourself in beauty and spirit.
Nancy Hart
Why Chalk
1 - Spring 1971
Visiting Dan and Jane in Oxford, England, we took a day trip out to the plains to see the ancient hill figure White Horse. This Bronze Age chalk drawing in Uffinton is a scoured image of a goddess horse. Maintained by the National Trust, it is an ancient ritualistic drawing, 374 ft long, cut into the chalk with trenches 5-10 ft wide and 2-3 ft deep. Best seen from the sky, it is a miracle to behold.
2- Hopscotch
During the early Roman Empire, in Britain, Roman foot soldiers ran through a training routine on a chalked course over 100 feet long which was thought to improve their balance. Roman children imitated the soldiers with a smaller version and added a point system thus creating the game.