Special tribute team to create largest ever street painting at I Madonnari Festival, May 27-29

A special Tribute Team of dedicated veteran street painters will create the I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival’s largest street painting to date to commemorate I Madonnari’s 20th anniversary May 27, 28, and 29 at the Santa Barbara Mission. The 24–by–30 feet street painting will be a tribute to Santa Barbara’s sister cities of Toba, Japan and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico.

A special festival ceremony will take place on Monday, May 29, at noon, on the Mission steps; and the festival will run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. all three days. Admission is free and additional parking is available on the Mission field.

I Madonnari is the first festival of its kind in North America to present the performance art of street painting. One of Santa Barbara’s most popular open-air events, it is presented by the Children’s Creative Project (CCP), a nonprofit arts education program of the Santa Barbara County Education Office, William J. Cirone, superintendent. The festival is sponsored in part by the The Berry Man, The Dreier Group, and the Loreto Plaza Shopping Center.

“The featured street painting may be viewed from two sides. Each side will illustrate a traditional folktale from each country joined by a common sky. The collaborating artists have met regularly to design the original image for this special year,” said Festival Director Kathy Koury.

This year, 30 representatives from Toba, including Mayor Kusuichi Kida; Soran, a Japanese folk dance group; and artist Yoshi Taniguchi will travel to Santa Barbara to be guests of honor at the festival ceremony on Monday, at noon on the Mission steps. Taniguchi will join the Tribute Team of artists to create the street painting honoring the sister cities.

In October of 2004, eight Santa Barbara street painters, including several members of the current Tribute Team, Kathy Koury, Santa Barbara Mayor Marty Blum, and sister city representatives traveled to Toba, Japan to help celebrate the city’s 50th anniversary. The trip was sponsored by the Santa Barbara-Toba Sister City Organization and coordinated by Takako Wakita. “For the first time, we introduced a street painting festival to the Toba community, and we have been invited to do the same for the people of Puerto Vallarta this year. The Santa Barbara-Puerto Vallarta Sister City Organization representatives, artists from the Tribute Team, and other street painters will travel to Puerto Vallarta this November,” said Koury.

An expanded area for children to create street paintings will be located at the left side of the Mission inside a private parking area. A total of 600 Kids’ Squares are available and when completed will form a solid 40–by–60 foot patchwork of street paintings. Throughout the three-day event 2–by–2 feet Kids’ Squares can be purchased for $10, including a box of chalk.

Featured Artist Melanie Stimmell can be viewed at the base of the Mission steps where she will create a 12–by–16 feet street painting. A festival participant since May 2002, Stimmell’s talent will be showcased as the featured artist for this year’s major festival sponsors. Stimmell is a Los Angeles-based artist who received a bachelor’s degree from Art Center College of Design. After college she worked as a Lead Technical Director for the feature film South Park...bigger, longer, and uncut. She then went on to work for the South Park TV series for seven years. Stimmell currently works for a design studio in Long Beach, where she paints murals for clients such as Bristol Farms. She also instructs for the Orange County Performing Arts Center and the Los Angeles Music Center. Stimmell began street painting in 1998 and has painted at festivals throughout the U.S., as well as internationally. She has won several major awards in Italy and Germany, where she is honored as a Maestra. She has created street paintings in Holland, Istanbul, and Turkey where at their first street painting festivals she was one of three American featured artists. This August, she will continue to share her street paintings in Canada and Italy.

The festival will feature more than 150 street painting squares drawn on the pavement in front of the Old Mission. The squares range in size from 4–by–6 feet to 12–by–12 feet and in price from $125 to $650, each one bearing the name of its sponsor — a business, organization, or individual. As the public watches, 300 local artists transform these pavement canvases with images of elaborate compositions in unexpectedly vibrant colors. This year, the street painting squares sold out by May 1. Members of the public can sign up at the festival’s information booth to receive a brochure to be a street painting sponsor or to apply to be an artist for next year.

Live music and an Italian market in keeping with the Italian theme will be featured on the Mission lawn throughout the three-day event. In the Mission Church, free concerts from 6 to 7 p.m. will feature Opera Santa Barbara on Saturday, The Dilijan Chamber Players on Sunday, and the Adelfos Ensemble on Monday. According to Children’s Creative Project President Phil Morreale, this year’s market will include: lemon-rosemary roasted chicken, pasta, pizza, Italian sausage sandwiches, gelati, coffees, and other authentic Italian cuisine. Self-guided tours of the Old Mission will also be available from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. by entering the Mission’s gift shop.

I Madonnari is produced by the Children’s Creative Project. The organization is the first to bring this public art form to North America. After traveling to the festival in Italy, Koury created the concept for the fundraiser and produced the first-year event in 1987 when the Santa Barbara Mission was celebrating its bicentennial.

Father Virgil Cordano and the bicentennial committee members agreed to accept the street painting festival as a part of their celebration. From this time, the festival has continued to grow and now is being replicated in other cities throughout the U.S. Since 1992, the Children’s Creative Project has produced a second festival in San Luis Obispo to raise funds for CCP arts education programs in its county. This year’s festival will take place on the weekend of Sept. 16–17, 2006 at the downtown San Luis Obispo Mission Plaza. Since 2002, the San Luis Obispo festival has been presented in collaboration with the American Institute of Architects California Central Coast Chapter.

Street painting, using chalk as the medium, is an Italian tradition dating to the 16th century. Called “Madonnari” because of their practice of reproducing the image of the Madonna (Our Lady), the 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 works of art. With the first rains of the season, their paintings would be gone. Today, the tradition lives on in the village of Grazie di Curtatone, Italy where the annual International Street Painting Festival is held in mid-August in the piazza of the Catholic Church.

Festival proceeds benefit the Children’s Creative Project, a non-profit arts education program of the County Education Office, William J. Cirone, superintendent. The Project sponsors fine arts programs in the schools for a total of 60,000 children.

Through the Resident Artist program, 60 artists conduct visual and performing arts workshops for more than 30,000 children. Fundraising from the I Madonnari festival helps continue the work of the Children’s Creative Project and support annual performance events among other activities.

Last October at the Arlington Theatre, 4,000 children had the rare opportunity to experience a performance by the Yamato Wadaiko Drummers of Japan. The performance was co-presented with the Santa Barbara Bowl Foundation Education Outreach Program.

This year 60,000 children at 150 school sites have viewed more than 900 performances presented by 50 touring companies sponsored in the Children’s Creative Project’s Arts Catalog. To support this program, festival proceeds also provide every county public school with a $200 arts credit to subsidize in part touring company performance fees.

Festival Sponsors include:

Angeli Sponsors: The Berry Man, The Dreier Group

Bennefattori Sponsors: Loreto Plaza Shopping Center, Mission Santa Barbara, and Santa Barbara County Education Office.

Amici Sponsors: Bella Vista Designs, Inc. & Star Power, Cox Communications, Cucina Fresca, El Prado Inn, Haagen Printing, KEYT3 children first, IdeaWork Studios, Koss Soft Pastels, KRUZ 97.5 & Magic 106.3, NS Ceramic, Pacific Western, Pure Water Systems, Santa Barbara Bank & Trust, Santa Barbara News-Press, Santa Barbara Travel Bureau, Smart Party Rents, Snapple Natural Beverages, UNICO Santa Barbara, Ventura Printing, and Yardi Systems.

Further information about the Children’s Creative Project, I Madonnari, artist interviews, and festival photos is available by contacting Koury at 964–4710, ext. 4411 or at www.imadonnarifestival.com.