For half a decade now, Chalkboy has been turning menus into masterpieces. He started his career working as a waiter looking to scratch his creative itch while on the clock. Once a week each member of staff at the coffee shop he worked at was given 30 minutes to write that week's menu on the board. Most people could chalk up the three items in ten minutes, but Chalkboy – wanting to capitalise on the entire half hour – started taking his time to craft a thing of beauty. He browsed the beer and wine labels on the counter, mimicking the fancy fonts on the board. When he finished the customers applauded and soon his days of bussing tables were over.
Chalkboy now travels around Tokyo with chalk in hand, going from cafés to clothing stores, turning blackboards into billboards. Despite the schoolroom equipment, it isn’t as simple as it looks – and he is now sharing his skills through a series of workshops and a new book: ‘What a Hand-Written World!’.
Aside from being Tokyo’s go-to chalk maestro, Chalkboy has an interesting sideline. Under the moniker Eatbeat!, he records eating and cooking sounds with chefs and turns them into music, which he both records and performs live.
While he enjoys the music, art remains his true love and – despite being adept with ink and paint – chalk is still his go-to material. ‘I like the distinctiveness of chalk,’ he explains. ‘Sometimes it would write thick, sometimes thin, it’s erasable, but doesn’t disappear completely, it leaves a white stain. These sound like disadvantages, but that’s what I like about it. It has a certain appeal to it that no other writing utensil has.' We are talking in the shadow of his latest piece, a huge bird mural at the Bird Daikanyama café. 'That took two hours to create,' he smiles. Even after all these years Chalkboy still likes to take his time...
To find out about upcoming Chalkboy classes see instagram.com/chalkboy.me and hear Eatbeat! music at eatbeat.jp
