Amy Sell likes to say that she and chalk found each other. Although Sell has been working with chalk for only a year and a half, she’s already been featured at some of Kansas City’s favorite businesses. Her first foray into art started with a part-time job at Best Regards Bakery when she took the outdoor chalkboards home to play around. “I just got really good, really fast,” she says. “I’ve never been really serious about art all all until I started working with chalk. I’d never found a medium so cohesive with the way I like to work.” She’s also created installations for The Big Biscuit, Rainy Day Books, and other work featured through Amy Lynn Studios.
Tell me more about your process—how do you get inspired?
At the bakery, I was able to take the smaller chalkboards home, which was great, because I could walk away and play with it. At The Big Biscuit, the pieces are attached to the wall. That was my first challenge having to work on location within a time frame—and while people were watching. So, that was a fairly new element for me. But I’ve figured it out along the way, and I love it now.
Pinterest has been my best friend. I love finding images that are fun, playful, and just feel like they need to be recreated in chalk. I like anything that feels quirky—animals with things on their heads or people with flowers coming out of their mouths. I love whimsical art that catches you off guard.
What do you love about working with chalk?
One, you can erase as you go. You can erase and redraw and erase and redraw. And if you get outside the lines, a wet rag is your best eraser. Two, chalk allows me to blend so beautifully. I love blending colors. It’s such a dopamine hit for me to be blending colors, and chalk is one of the few places I can really do that.
Do you have any favorite past projects?
I turned one piece, a carnival girl, into a holiday card. I loved her because the colors were so bright and so vivid; she was my favorite for a while. I just did a project based on an Oracle card of a woman covered all in plants—that’s one of my favorites because it’s so much more detailed than I’ve ever done before. She turned out spectacularly.
What’s next for your art?
I love working with businesses because I like the impermanence of it. I like being able to change often. People really want to make this a permanent art, but I don’t know that it always needs to be. I have been able to take pieces I’ve done at home and turn them into cards and prints, so those are good for people who like having permanent art around, and that’s a world I’m exploring now.
I feel like I’m in a sweet spot right now, though. It feels really good. I have a vision of my chalk art in places where kids are, like at Children’s Mercy or the library. I’d love to find an avenue that allows me to play in that area, to have my chalk art in places where kids can be inspired or can find it joyful to look at.
Find more of Amy Sell’s work at Amy Lynn Studios.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.