When is a straight line not a...

When is a straight line not a straight line?

If it was drawn by artist Kurt Wenner, it would literally depend on your perspective.

Wenner will lead the street painting for Chalk on the Walk, a cultural festival at Centennial Square in Pasadena this weekend.

“I had a cupola that I had to paint straight columns on, and I had to paint them so that they looked straight from the floor (underneath),” said Wenner, who has a lot of different uses for perspective.

“All perspective is a mathematically consistent distortion,” the artist said. “What we call conventional perspective, it assumes a very narrow point of view,” such as making things that are close up in your picture bigger than things that are far away.

One of the chalk paintings that Wenner is bringing to the festival is done with anamorphic perspective.

“The picture is distorted to be seen through a very specific point in space,” he said. “I usually have people see it through a lens and then it looks three-dimensional.”

Wenner did the painting on canvas at another festival where the sidewalk wasn’t good for working on directly. He’s bringing the canvas to Pasadena partly so he doesn’t have to spend all his time doing his own work. “That frees me up to help,” he said.

The two-day festival, to benefit the All Saints AIDS Service Center and the Light-Bringer Project, is from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the square outside City Hall, 100 N. Garfield Ave.

In addition to chalk art, there will be entertainment, food samples from local restaurants and a chance to create your own street painting for $10. The cost includes a box of chalk and a space to ply your talents.

Admission is $5 for adults, children get in free.