There is an awesome pseudo-blackboard that was put up on a wall in the front hallway of my workplace just a few weeks ago.

The reason I love this board so much is because of the effect it has on the people walking by. Really it's just some matte black paint in a big box on the wall and a wooden trough with some chalk scraps in it. What's amazing is how engaging it can be.

Folks draw, write, express on this blackboard. Every so often it gets cleaned and refreshed. Sometimes messages for exhibits are put up, sometimes random scribbles, sometimes nothing.

I believe it started as an art project itself, and was so well received and clever that the powers that be decided to keep it up. I'm happy because it is a very effective way to bring people into a collaborative art process and really make passers-by share in the art.

I've added to it here and there, and I felt that no other object was more deserving of having my feelings attached to it. Like so many other completions of this task I'm sure my expression will be ephemeral, but I've immortalized it here with some fancy photoshop skills for you to enjoy.

What made this completion extra challenging, besides my trepidation of completing it in a slightly subversive way, was the lack of chalk. I was startled to find no real chalk on the trough, instead just fragments of the orange, and some blue. You can see my fingers coated in chalk in some of the pictures; I had to grip very tightly onto small, 0.5cm shards just to write on the board, sometimes doing more smuding than scratching.

My text was brief, due to the medium, and in total, said:
"Dear New Blackboard,
You bring art to this hallway, and you catch my eye. You create within me an impulse to express and share. You allow the whole community to be a part of making and responding to art. I adore and admire you.
-BP"

All in all I'm very happy with how it turned out, matching my feelings about the board as a whole. It's been up about a week, and we'll see how long it lasts. I may try to make Odes to the Blackboard a theme as the board will inevitably get erased in the near future.

Who knows, maybe someone will even write a reply!

(This was even more fun because I had been plotting it for weeks and finally executed it on the dinner break from a 10 hour D&D session! Geek ^ extreme)