On Entertainment by Steven Libowitz
Chalk it Up! I Madonnari Street Painting Festival Persists During Pandemic
S
treet painting artists have been compared to masochists, in that their hobby of drawing with chalk on the sidewalk has become an obsession, back pain and sore knees ignored in a mission that is exhibited annually on the pavement in front of the Santa Barbara’s Old Mission during the I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival held every Memorial Day Weekend. This year, of course, that endeavor had to be canceled in deference to sheltering in place to combat the coronavirus pandemic. But all is not lost. Instead the assorted artists will have to display their drive and determination to mix colors and pastels to render huge images on the ground on the driveways of their own homes. “I love the festival at the Old Mission, but that just wasn’t possible this year,” said Children’s Creative Project Executive Director Kathy Koury, who created the festival and the concept of sponsored street paintings as a fundraiser for the nonprofit and produced the first local festival way back in 1987 after seeing a street painting competition in Grazie di Curtatone, Italy, the village where the nearly 500-year-old tradition still thrives. Early Italian street painters were vagabonds who would arrive in small towns and villages for Catholic religious festivals and transform the streets and public squares into temporary galleries for their ephemeral
Steven Libowitz has reported on the arts and entertainment for more than 30 years; he has contributed to the Montecito Journal for more than 10 years.
works of art, often of the Madonna, which gave the tradition its name. Santa Barbara’s event – which also features three days of nearly nonstop music on a temporary stage on the lawn of the Mission’s plaza as well as food booths and crafts sales along the perimeter – has spawned similar festivals in more than 200 cities throughout the Western Hemisphere, but this year, the progenitor of the process has had to move to an online presence only. The way it works is that festival artists will use chalk pastels to transform their pavement canvases into compositions painted from
photographs or their own imagination, while visitors can view the daily evolution of the street paintings on the festival website, Instagram, and Facebook by following the hashtags #imadonnari, #iMadOnline2020 and #ChildrensCreativeProject. This year’s featured street painting – which usually occupies “center stage” just beneath the steps of the Mission – will be a reproduction of a piece by Thomas Hart Benton. The 12’ x 50’ painting will be created by longtime I Mads artists Sharyn Chan, Ann Hefferman, and Jay Schwartz, with the assistance of Emily Hefferman, in a secret location off-limits to the general public. A new “Chalk for Kids” event will let children create drawings on their own driveways – or the sidewalk, if they’re bold – and also share their creations on Instagram using #ChalkOn2020. Through the sponsorship of Village Properties, free chalk will be distributed via social distancing between 9 am and 1 pm on Saturday, May 23, at the drivethrough parking lot at the corner of State and Micheltorena streets. Those who like to see silver linings among the clouds might consider that the ephemeral nature of chalk drawings – which are at the mercy of the elements as well as foot traffic – might be even more poignant this year as the COVID crisis has brought the fragility of our existence into the
forefront of the mind. Then again, this year’s drawings will live on forever in cyberspace.
May Day for LeMay
Festival artist Jennifer LeMay, who started street painting with chalk for I Madonnari in the festival’s second year in 1988 and has missed only a handful of I-Mads over the ensuing 32 years, is joining nearly 60 other artists in creating works in her own driveway to celebrate the Memorial Day Weekend event. We caught up with her last weekend to see how COVID might be changing her approach. Q. So this is different, huh, doing a street painting festival from home? A. This is very different. But at least we’re doing it. For a while, we thought that the festival would just be canceled. The prospect of not having it was sad, but then the staff at CCP came up with the idea of us doing it from home and having us take pictures, do some progress photos, tag each other on social media and post photo galleries. Everybody was like, wow, that’s a great idea. A lot of artists jumped on board and we’ve got quite a few sponsors, too. So we can still have art this year, and a festival that’s the main fundraiser for the year for CCP. Obviously it’s pared down, but a lot better than not having one at all.
Coastal Hideaways
Inc.
805 969-1995 Luxury Vacation Rentals Short or Long Term
Interior Design Services also available Hire the best in the industry to manage your income property. Please stop in and visit us 25 years serving the Santa Barbara community
Melissa M. Pierson, Owner 1211 Coast Village Road #4 Montecito, CA 93108 Vacations@coastalhideaways.com www.coastalhideaways.com
32 MONTECITO JOURNAL
Jennifer LeMay’s collaborative street painting from a few years back
“I drink to make other people more interesting.” – Ernest Hemingway
21 – 28 May 2020
