Chalk Festival

Over the past 27 years, the Cleveland Museum of Art's Chalk Festival has become one of the museum's most highly anticipated community art events. This weekend, the event returns. It's based on a Renaissance tradition from 16th-century Italy in which beggars copied paintings of the Madonna by Raphael and his contemporaries by using chalk on the plazas outside cathedrals. Large squares (approximately 3-by-4-feet of sidewalk) can be reserved for $20 (includes a 24-color box of chalk), and small squares (approximately 2-by-3-feet) are $10 (including a 12-color box of chalk). It all takes place from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. today and tomorrow, rain or shine. (Niesel)