Chalkboard artist Malia McCabe creates memorable menus
Perhaps you've ordered a glass of wine from the Sips Corner at Key Arena, an ice-cream cone at Scoop du Jour in Madison Park, a latte at Espresso by Design in Georgetown, soup at Bellevue's Café Pogacha, a BLT at Harborview Medical Center's cafeteria, or a burrito at any of the Blue Water Taco Grills. Each displays chalkboard menus created by Malia McCabe.
Armed with a palette of vivid oil pastels and a prodigious talent for drawing, McCabe has carved out a niche decorating chalkboards for restaurants and bars. Her work turns up in neighborhood sports bars and little mom-and-pop cafes, as well as in trendy cocktail lounges and corporate restaurants like Arnie's, Anthony's and Elliott's, and even in supermarkets like Trader Joe's.
After almost a decade, "I've finally gotten to the point where people are calling me," says McCabe, although her company, Chalk of the Town (www.chalkofthetown.com), is still a one-woman show.
The business started quite by chance. After graduating from Washington State University in 1991 with a major in advertising and a minor in art, the Enumclaw native moved to Seattle to work in advertising, but instead found herself waiting tables at Duke's on Lake Union. When Duke's acquired another location in Bellevue, it came equipped with chalkboards. Seizing the chance to make some extra cash, McCabe talked management into letting her do the chalkboards, and a new business was born.
Erasable, reusable and portable, chalkboards offer bars and restaurants a flexible, original and economical way to display menus or advertise special promotions.
Dave DeVarona chose chalkboard menus for his chain of four fast-casual Blue Water Taco Grills not only because he liked their flexibility in adapting to menu changes but also because he wanted a non-slick, handmade look. "My shops aren't cookie-cutter shops," he says. "I don't want them all to look alike and I don't want to look like a Starbucks."
He also wanted blue, not black, boards, and McCabe found a source that could supply them.
"We get a lot of compliments, especially on the blue," says DeVarona. To capture the "vacation mood" he was aiming for, McCabe drew googly-eyed sea creatures and palm trees on the bill of fare, using hot tropical colors and a cartoon-like style.
Most customers buy basic black chalkboards, which McCabe gets from the same supplier schools use. They cost $5.50 per square foot and are available in sheets up to 4 feet by 8 feet. Frame prices vary according to size and style.
McCabe's fee for artwork is $33 per square foot for chalk, $35 for paint. "Some clients just want a border that's permanent, and then they fill in the daily menu or specials," she said.
McCabe works in a studio at her Kirkland home, thrilled finally to have "a door I can close and a room that fits even the largest boards." For years, her one-bedroom apartment doubled as her studio and she used her sofa as an easel. Eventually she put an easel in the kitchen, but the table had to go.
And even then, she recalls, "if it was a really big board, I'd be back to using the sofa. Almost everything I've ever owned has been covered in chalk dust at some point."
McCabe experimented at length to find just the right low-oil pastels. "The kind of chalk I use is nothing like sidewalk chalk, which has no oil and is very dusty," she explains. "But if you use a chalk with too much oil, it can leave a permanent shadow on the boards. Then you have the Valentine's Day heart showing through the Thanksgiving turkey, or last week's special still visible under this week's. My clients have a big investment in these boards, and I don't want to do anything that will damage them."
Though chalk art sounds ephemeral, it can be long-lived. After nine years, McCabe's work still hangs in Scoop du Jour, the Madison Park ice creamery. Owner Edward Washington recalls that at the time it was the new thing: "Some of the hot bars downtown had chalkboards, and I thought it would be fun to have one in the shop."
McCabe adapted two paintings by George Seurat for Scoop du Jour. In her version of the familiar "A Sunday on La Grande Jatte," the people in the park are holding ice-cream cones. In the other, "The Bathers at Asnieres," she incorporated Mount Rainier in the distance. The murals still elicit admiration from customers, Washington says, and when prices change, McCabe just climbs up on the counter and makes the fix.
Renoir's "Luncheon of the Boating Party" inspired the imposing mural menu McCabe created for Espresso by Design. But the faces of the sedate 19th-century men and women gathered around the table are quite familiar to owners Dawn and Tim Jefferies and anyone else who frequents this diminutive cafe next door to the Seattle Design Center in Georgetown.
"We gave Malia photos of everyone who works here, and she incorporated their faces into the picture. We even included one of our favorite customers," says Dawn Jefferies. "People love it. It's really a focal point, and it adds so much personality to the shop. When we need to make changes, Malia comes in with her ladder. It's so much cheaper and easier than if it were painted. It was really a practical way to go, and it's a piece of art."
Much as she enjoys working with small entrepreneurs, a good portion of her business comes from liquor-company and food-product promotions, which often involve the painstaking reproduction of logos. Lately, McCabe has experimented with photo reproduction: Look closely at those chalkboard section markers at Trader Joe's and you might discover they aren't as erasable as they look. Even before she started getting paid for her art, McCabe was always creating.
"My mother gets some sort of painting or drawing for a Christmas gift. That's what she asks for. She always says she would like a houseful of my originals."
As successful as she's been with Chalk of the Town, it's still not a full-time job. Though she gave up waiting tables five years ago, she continues to manage an apartment building and designs labels for wineries. For fun (and possibly for profit someday) she paints children's furniture, creates chalkboards for her friends' homes and is taking a class in radio voice-overs. She has even volunteered at a local school, teaching art. She and her husband of 16 months, Ken McCabe, hope to add "mom" to her résumé soon.
"I've always had three or four jobs, and it's been hand-to-mouth sometimes," she admits. "I kind of lump everything together at the end of the year, so I don't really know what my revenues are just from the chalkboards. I'm actually afraid to find out exactly how much I don't make at this, because I love doing it."
For her, the work adds up to something much more than a living. "I've achieved the goals I set for myself in my career. I wanted to work for myself and do something creative that would mesh with having kids someday. It's not as though I'm saving the world by doing chalkboards, but I'm so blessed that I've been given this gift, and it's nice to know people get pleasure out of my work. To have found a way to make a living that also makes me happy is so satisfying."