I remember the good old days back in the convent when the lessons were carried out with the use of white chalks on black boards. We as good convent girls dutifully took turns to clean the board after each lesson. Well that’s not exactly true. We didn’t really take turns. It was more like we were assigned by rotation the honours of board cleaning duty. I mean let us face the facts, chalk or more specifically chalk dust is nothing fun to be around. It is disgusting breathed in, it dries out your hands almost immediately upon contact and it leaves unsightly marks all over your uniform (which makes you guilty of not up-keeping the convent code that all convent girls are neat and appearance well-groomed).
So yes, the board cleaning duty is a hassle. I hated it and even more so because I have allergies and well chalk just about chalks up my lungs.
Yet at the end of it all, as much as I hated dealing with chalk, I never could deny just how wonderful a medium of art it was. And it was quite a puzzle to me as to why the nuns always only used white chalks when we did have coloured ones. Well I realize now that that was because white made the clearest contrast against the black board so it was better to read off but such a waste those coloured ones…
Honestly you really wouldn’t give much thought to chalks but you might make an exception for these… There’s a special kind of chalk developed by Kawasaki-based company, Nihon Rikagaku Industry Co. Their chalks are made from recycled/repurposed scallop shells.
Nishikawa is the brains behind scallop shell chalks. Instead of letting tons of scallop shells go to waste and pile up in landfills, they are mixed with the conventional chalk material, calcium carbonate to create this amazing new line of chalks that are smoother to write with, produce less dust (almost dustless even) and with colours that are simple so vibrant, they are breathtaking.
And when the chalks get written down to a size to small to write with, you can always just toss them into a flower pot to improve the quality of soil!
