The amazing story of how we got our chalk

Since 1992, Matthew Bowman has been a chalk artist in several places around the globe, sometimes drawing for crowds as many as 25,000 at a time. In 1995, after a trip to Taiwan, Matt was asked to move to Chicago and work with a non-profit charity ministry and begin a chalk art course for people to learn. During that time, Matt taught and sold chalk to his students and continued to do programs all over the world. As a result, the charity ministry he worked for became the largest distributor of lecturer's chalk in the country.

In 2000, Matt bought out the chalk inventory from the ministry he had been volunteering for in order to return home to Michigan. He then launched Eternity Arts and started EternityArts.com to sell materials to the chalk artists he had trained.

The chalk inventory started out in the basement at his parents' house, moved to a friend's garage, then to a semi-trailer, then to another garage, and finally to a building in 2006.

In 2005, Dixon Prang sales reps told Matt there would be a sale on the chalk. This was odd; it had never happened before. Dixon had been making art supplies since 1795 and was the world's only producer of lecturer's chalk for gospel chalk artists. They were running a sale to liquidate their inventory. They were ceasing production on lecturer's chalk altogether. Matt realized immediately that this could be the death of chalk art as we knew it.

Dixon told Matt they had forty-three hundred cases of chalk to sell out. Matt had sixty-day terms and free shipping with Dixon, so he committed to buy it all.

"I had no money," Matt said, "but I knew if I had sixty days, I would have to find it somewhere."

Matt also negotiated with Dixon for several hundred thousand dollars to be able to buy the formulas, but they weren't interested in selling the recipes. He asked Dixon how much room they would need for the chalk and how much space it would take up, but the rep didn't know.

"A week later a 48' semi-truck pulled in to our residence at the time and told me they had a delivery for me. I said, how much is there? The driver said, 'Son, this whole truck is yours!' It took us about two hours to unload, and thankfully we had a neighbor with a high-low that helped."

Matt had just finished building his house that year, so the chalk was packed in the three-car garage, floor to ceiling, fifteen feet high, all that next winter. He and his wife had been saving to live their marriage debt-free and built their house that way. But when the need for preserving the chalk ministry came, Matt decided to mortgage his home to buy the chalk. What he didn't know at the time was that it would cost well over half a million dollars to get into full production over the next three years.

When the inventory arrived, they found they had a very wide range of quantities of each color. "We had three pallets of yellow-orange and only eight boxes of magenta. In other words, we had enough yellow-orange to last a hundred years, but less than a year's supply of magenta."

Another challenge: while Matt had this chalk, he had no idea how to make more when it ran out. The recipes and process had been a trade secret for years, and Dixon wasn't selling. All that winter of 2005–2006, Matt worked with chemists around the country getting ideas and tips. Everyone gave him a piece of a larger puzzle, but no one had all the pieces. Some ideas proved to be a huge waste of money and failed immediately.

"I went to work on the white right away, and with chemists and labs working closely with us, it took over a hundred tries to get it right — and even then we kept perfecting it over the next two years. Colored chalk was not as easy as white like I thought it would be. Since lecturer's chalk is so soft, extremely pigmented, rich, and bold, no two recipes are alike. The whole process and chemistry changes from batch to batch. The red chalk, for example, took me six years to figure out. The black took two."

The following spring, Matt got a call from the Tiger Woods Foundation requesting a quote on chalk and custom packaging. The foundation wanted the chalk packaged in an outdoor activity set for children to use. The event would be held at all 4,011 Target stores in America for Kids' Night Out.

The purchasing agent told Matt they needed the chalk in eight weeks — a hundred thousand packages. At this time, the only color Matt knew how to make was white. The foundation told him they didn't care what colors were in the set as long as there was a white in each one. What are the chances of any group buying chalk and not caring what colors they got?

"Since we were just getting started in this chalk making, we had very little equipment. The packager, forklift, and tons of tools had to be purchased in time and be operational."

As soon as Matt signed the contract, the foundation agreed to pay for it up front.

"We had to update all our equipment and in some cases buy it. The pressure was on and we had only eight weeks. We spent the first four weeks making the chalk, and when we got done we realized the chalk was not drying. We then had to go to work on a new way to dry it, and fast. We had four weeks left to dry and package it. The Lord made a way, and we finished with two days to spare."

"That is how the Lord got us started in making the chalk — with no equipment to start and no money."

Every stick is still handmade. "This type of chalk would be next to impossible to automate. It's a process that takes a lot of time and an incredible amount of mess. If it weren't for the gospel ministry and the winning of the lost, I would not have wasted my time in this endeavor. It's also why I believe God saw fit to preserve it in this way."

Back in the 1970s, when black light chalk was no longer being made, Ding Teuling stepped up and bought the formula and made it for himself and others. That was part of his calling from God. He did that so we could be here doing it today. If he had not done it, most if not all of us would not be here now. Matt says his part in the preservation of chalk art was his part, in his day, just as Ding's was in the 1970s.

Since taking on this huge chalk-making process and great expense, it has become obvious that the setup costs, the ingredients only available in large quantities, and the sales to a minority called gospel chalk artists are the reasons Dixon got rid of it in the first place.

God has opened other uses and markets for Eternity chalk — the popularity of 3D street painters, many industrial uses, event work. It is these growing markets that God is using to help support our true calling: the gospel chalk artists.

It is Matt's prayer that chalk artists will take the tools God has given and preserved and reach the world the way he is trying to do through Eternity Arts. You can visit Matt's personal site at ChalkEvangelist.com.