The Amazing story of how we got our chalk
Since 1992, Matthew Bowman has been a Gospel chalk artist actively using chalk art abroad to share the Gospel. In 1995 after a trip to Taiwan, Bill Gothard asked matt to move to Chicago to begin a chalk art course for home school families. With so many home schoolers in the ATI home school program, Matt was able to teach and expose thousands to the ministry of Gospel chalk art. During that time, Matt sold chalk to his students for the ATI homes school group. As a result they became the largest distributor of lecturers chalk in the nation.
In 2000, matt bought out the ATI chalk inventory and easels and returned home to Michigan. He then launched Eternity Arts and started the eternityarts.com to sell materials to his chalk artists that he had trained.
The chalk inventory started out in the basement at his parent’s house, to another garage and some friends, then a semi trailer, to another garage and finally a building in 2006.
In 2005, Dixon Prang sales reps told matt that there would be a sale on the chalk. This was odd since it had never happened before. Dixon has been making art supplies since 1795 and they were the world’s only producer of lecturers chalk for Gospel chalk artists. They had decided to run a sale in order 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 that 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 “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 were not interested in selling the recipes. He asked Dixon how much room they would need and how much space would it take up, but the rep did not know. Matt recalls “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 2 hours to unload and thankfully we had a neighbor with a high low that helped.
Matt and his wife Katie had just finished building their house that year, so the chalk was packed in the 3-car garage floor to ceiling 15 feet high all that next winter. We had been saving and planning to live our marriage debt free, and built our house that way.
However when the need for preserving the chalk ministry came, we decided to mortgage our home in order to have the money to buy the chalk. What we did not know at the time was that it would cost well over half a million dollars to get into full production in three years that followed.
When the inventory arrived, we found that we had a very wide range of quantities of each color! We had 3 pallets of yellow orange and only 8 boxes of Magenta. In other words, we had enough yellow orange to last a hundred years, but less than a year supply of magenta.
Another challenge was that while we had this chalk, we had no idea how to make more when it did run out. The recipes and process had been a trade secret for years, and they were not going to sell them.
All that winter of 2005-2006 Matt worked with chemists around the country getting ideas and tips. Everyone gave us a piece here and there to a larger puzzle, but no one had all the pieces. Some ideas for the process proved to be a huge waste of money and failed immediately.
We went to work on the white right away and with chemists and labs working closely with us it took over 100 tries to get it right; and even then, still perfected it over the next two years.
Colored chalk was not as easy as white like we 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 matt four years to discover and he is still working on it. The black took two years.
The following spring, Matt got a call from the Tiger Woods foundation requesting a quote on some chalk and custom packaging. Matt gave the quote and was told it was too high. He spent the next few weeks negotiating the deal with the foundation. They could get it a bit cheaper from China, but not as fast as Matt could make it here. The foundation was looking for the chalk to be packaged and put in an outdoor activity set for children to use out doors. The event would be at all 4011 Target stores in America for the “Kids Night Out” event.
The Purchasing agent for the Tiger Woods event told Matt that they would have to get the chalk in 8 weeks and that they needed a hundred thousand packages of chalk. At this time the only color that Matt new how to make was white. The foundation told Matt that they did not 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 stared 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 with 8 weeks to deliver the chalk, the foundation agreed to pay for it up front!
Matt signed a contract and went to work with a friend around the clock for 8 weeks to make the deadline. 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 4 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 4 weeks left to dry and package it. The Lord made a way and we finished with 2 days to spare!
That is how the Lord got us started in making the chalk with no equipment to start and no money.
In the days that followed as we would start to run out of a color, we would get to work on it full time until we got it, and as far as I know, never back-ordered anyone’s chalk.
God gave the formulas and process to Matt through prayer, those God brought into his path as well as the support and understanding of his dear wife Katie who had to do without him much of the time during the thousands of hours of work, experiments and study.
Every stick is still handmade. “This type of chalk would be next to impossible to automate,” says matt. “It is a process that takes a lot of time and in incredible amount of mess. If it were not for the Gospel ministry and the winning of the lost, I would not have wasted my time in this endeavor. It is also why I believe God saw fit to preserve it in this way.”
Back in the 70s when black light chalk was no longer being made, Ding Teuling stepped up to the plate and bought it 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 doing it. Matt says his part is the preservation of chalk art was his part, in his day, just like Ding’s was in the 70s.
Since taking on this huge chalk making process and great expense, it has been obvious that the huge set up, ingredients that are only available in large quantities, sales only to a minority called Gospel chalk artists, that this is the reason that Dixon got rid of it in the first place.
God has opened other uses and markets for Eternity Chalk such as the recent popularity of the 3d street painters as well as many industrial uses. 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 the Chalk artist will take the tools God has given and preserved and reach to world as he is trying to do with Eternity Arts. You can visit Matt’s personal site at ChalkEvangelist.com.
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