Drawings at Your Feet

Free art, free music and food, what more could you want this Memorial Weekend? The Children’s Creative Project, a non-profit arts education organization, hosted its 29th annual I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival at the Santa Barbara Mission.

The I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival is an Italian tradition from the 16th century for which artists draw chalk images of the Madonna in front of the Catholic Church. However, this tradition has been slightly altered in California, where artists of all ages are sponsored with a 4x6 ft. or 12x12 ft. square ranging from $150 to $700, and can choose what to paint.

The area that surrounds the Mission is divided into three parts. The first being the Mission itself in which people can enter and attend the hourly masses. Directly in front of the building is the staircase, in which roughly 150 people are accumulated looking over the 50 artists’ shoulders, that separates the Mission from the parking lot.

The parking lot has been transformed into the painting area for the artists. Instead of cars occupying the space, the concrete area is covered with artists, admirers and colorful chalk. Though all the artists seem to have the same body language, hunched over, on their knees, with little room separating them and that focused look on their face, their subjects vary.

For example Samantha Marx, sponsored by The Painted Carnet Art School, decided to base her painting on the traditional Chinese coy paintings. Though she initially meant to draw this with a chalk depiction, “[the drawing] took more into a water color direction that kind of took a life of its own,” Marx said.

Samantha Marx and her developing image of the lotus and coy. (Photo Credit: Zuly Carpio)

On the other hand, Eliana Bohn, sponsored by her dentist, decided to enlarge the image she had originally painted for her mom, that of a goddess with a third eye and moon phases directly above her head. Bohn explained how “the moon phases serve as a representation of her dreaming.”

Eliana Bohn and her emerging image of a goddess with a third eye and moon phases above her. (Photo Credit: Zuly Carpio)

Tom Meaney, who sponsored himself, decided to make his drawing a little more personal and recreate a photo of his two younger kids with his puppies in chalk form. When asked about his process of how he decides on what to paint, Meaney shared how “Usually [he] takes a day or so to come up with the idea. [He] tries to come up with an image of the kids that’s interesting and then [he] paint for two and a half days.”

Tom Meany and his half completed image of his children with puppies. (Photo Credit: Zuly Carpio)

But the artists at work are only half the picture. As the artists settled in the concrete area, the grass area filled with grills, booths, guests and volunteers.

Towards the back of the grass area, approximately 30 grills were covered with chicken, shish kebabs, hamburgers or hot dogs. Around the edges, at least five booths sold the grilled food, while the others sold t-shirts, ice cream cones or posters. And in the middle, no fewer than 650 people sat around the tables, conversing, eating and having a good time.

Katy Koury, founder and director of the event, said she appreciated the contributors that made this event possible. Koury shared how “We have 100-200 volunteers every day. All of the food is donated by the Berry Man Inc., we have major festival sponsors who contribute $1,500 or more, all of the artists are volunteers, then we have people who helped organize this and are working the booths, around 300 of them, and the musicians are volunteers. All the proceeds that come from the event benefit the Children’s Creative Project.”

The Project is a county-supported organization to maintain art programs in the local schools. It began at Franklin Elementary School serving 200 children, but has expanded to help 50,000 children annually. The growth of this organization has allowed for them to provide visual and performing arts artists to 80 Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo County schools.