EASTHAMPTON — Though safety improvements are on tap in the near future for the sidewalks on Holyoke Street, there is often a bright spot — sometimes even a neon-colored one — decorating a section of the aging pathway.
Following a recent heavy downpour in the Valley, city resident Chris Kellogg was out at the first sign of sunshine, crouched on the fringes of the walkway, chalking out nostalgic cartoon characters from the 1990s, such as the green-colored school bully Roger Klotz from the Nickelodeon animated series “Doug,” and Spunky, the faithful but dimwitted pet of the lead character in Nickelodeon’s “Rocko’s Modern Life.”
“It’s fun,” Kellogg said. “I’ll be out drawing here in the afternoon sometimes and people will be walking their dogs and they’ll stop and comment, and even guess the characters before I’m finished.”
Kellogg, 40, who works in information technology and telecommunications at Smith College, dabbles in his creative hobby in his spare time. His talent, however, would appear to be a hidden one.
Outside of playing drums in a band, Kellogg, who has never had any formal art training, said he wasn’t “very artistic” growing up. He didn’t discover his flair for caricatures until the COVID-19 pandemic when he started drawing with chalk for his son Colson, who was 4 at the time.
One of the first cartoon characters he drew for Colson was Owlette, a superhero from the Disney Junior animated series, “PJ Masks.” Together, Kellogg and Colson began coloring outside regularly, attracting passersby, including a local mail carrier, to stop and marvel.
Each character takes roughly 30 to 45 minutes to draw using an image on his cellphone to guide his inspiration, Kellogg said.
The positive comments encouraged Kellogg to draw more and even challenge himself with more complicated cartoons. Since then, dozens of others, ranging from immediately recognizable ones like Ursula, the sea witch from Disney’s 1989 animated “The Little Mermaid” to more nostalgic ones like Skeletor, a supervillain from “He-Man and the Masters of the Universe.”
And Kellogg’s fellow Easthampton residents have continued to notice as many have stopped to take photos and publicly voice praise for his work online via groups on Facebook.
Though he appreciates the favorable feedback, Kellogg is always the first to point out what he could improve upon after completing each character.
“There’s always one thing that when I look back, I think, ‘I should have done this or that’,” he said. “But I guess that’s why I like chalk so much – it washes away. So if I mess up or I don’t think it’s perfect, I know it’s gonna wash away in a few days and I can always try again.”
To this point, he’s limited himself to close to where he lives along Holyoke Street, but he’s been considering reaching out to places like Comics N’More to see if the business would be interested in him trying his hand at drawing some superheroes or other characters around their shop, but hasn’t gotten to it yet. He’d also like to try his hand at some of the larger blacktop areas in the city.
In the meantime, he’s proud to add a little color to the half-century-old sidewalks in his neighborhood.
For those interested in seeing some of the other characters that Kellogg has created, he often catalogs them on Instagram at @sidewalk_nostalgia.
Emily Thurlow can be reached at ethurlow@gazettenet.com.
