Chalkweave

Chalkweave performances entail drawing 2000 x 1500 lines across a surface to represent 3,000,000 squares in a grid, three million intersections of chalk -of lives- which are easily erased from memory unless we commemorate them through art.  Valentine usually divides up a chalkboard into quadrants, then adds lines in ways that make it easier not to lose count while immersing himself in thoughtful action.

Why chalk lines?

Chalk lines are tallies. They are instructive. Easily erased, smudged, blurred.

The count becomes inaccurate, symbolic of the generalized history and support of widows and children, who are never counted as clearly as men and lack basic necessities in Iraq.

As I draw chalk lines, new lines cover old ones, they obliterate any trace of the first count, the first thousand lines, the first million intersections of lines.  Are there three million widows in Iraq? Three quarters of a million? More?  No one can accurately say because they are uncounted.  I count them, but, in chalk, the count remains painfully unclear.