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Jane Portaluppi
will be featured artist at the 17th annual I Madonnari street
painting festival, May 24, 25, and 26 at the Santa Barbara Mission.
Portaluppi has participated as a festival artist for many years. Also,
the festival will again feature an expanded area exclusively for children.
The festival will open at noon on Saturday with a ceremony and will
run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. all three days. Admission and parking are
free.
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 Antioch University.
THE EXPANDED STREET PAINTING AREA FOR CHILDREN will be located just
to the left of the Mission inside a private parking area. A total of
600 Kids’ Squares will be available and when completed will form
a solid 40–by–60 feet patchwork of street paintings. Throughout
the three-day event, Kids’ Squares can be purchased for $10 including
a box of chalk.
SQUARES will continue to be drawn in a grid on the pavement in front
of the Old Mission, increasing the total number of street paintings
to 200 squares. The squares range in size from 4–by–6 feet
to 12–by–12 feet and in price from $100 to $500, each one
bearing the name of its sponsor, which can be a business, organization,
or individual. As the public watches, 400 local artists then fill these
pavement canvases with images of often elaborate compositions in unexpectedly
vibrant colors. The response to this year’s festival has been greater
than ever with the available squares sold out by April 21, according
to CCP executive director Kathy Koury. Visitors 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. These are also available
by calling 569-3873.
MUSIC and AN ITALIAN MARKET in keeping with the Italian theme are featured
on the Mission lawn. In the church, there will be a free concert Saturday
evening featuring Opera Santa Barbara (6–7 p.m.). According to
Children’s Creative Project President Sergio Castellanos, this
year’s market will include: lemon-rosemary roasted chicken, pasta,
pizza, Italian sausage sandwiches, gelato, coffees, and other authentic
Italian cuisine.
FEATURED ARTIST JANE PORTALUPPI will create a 12-by-15 feet street painting
at the base of the Mission’s steps. Portaluppi has participated
as a festival artist for many years sharing her creations with the public.
She studied painting and printmaking at the Corcoran School of Art in
Washington, DC; owned and operated a gallery and printmaking studio
in Old Towne Alexandria, VA; and expanded to commercial art after moving
to Los Angeles. Concurrently, she has painted large-scale “trompe
l’oeil” murals for commercial and residential clients and
has worked as an art director for many fashion and home decor clients
and their advertising agencies. She discovered street painting at the
I Madonnari Festival after moving to Santa Barbara in the early ‘90s.
Since then she has participated in the festival and has been a featured
artist at multiple locations including the Venetian Hotel and Casino
in Las Vegas. Portaluppi is currently working in Santa Barbara as a
senior designer for a creative art licensing company.
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. 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 arts education
programs in this county. This year’s festival will take place on
the weekend of Sept. 6 and 7 at the San Luis Obispo Mission Plaza. The
festival will be presented in collaboration with the American Institute
of Architects 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,
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
nonprofit 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 70,000 children.
“Through our Residence Artist program, 50 artists conduct visual
and performing arts workshops for more than 26,000 children,” said
Kathy Koury, executive director. “Fundraising from the I Madonnari
festival is very important to continue the work of the Children’s
Creative Project and to support annual performance events among other
activities,” she said. Last March, 5,000 children had the opportunity
to experience a performance by the all-male African dance company, Soweto
Street Beat. The performance was co-presented with SAGE, an outreach
program of the Santa Barbara Bowl Foundation. This year 70,000 children
at 150 school sites have viewed more than 500 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 fees.
FESTIVAL sponsors include:
Bennefattori Sponsor: Antioch University
Amici Sponsors: Armstrong Imaging Center, Cox Communications,
El Prado Inn, Haagen Printing, KEYT3 children first, KEYT NewsRadio
1250, Koss Chalk Pastels, KRUZ 103.3, Magic 97.5, Oldies 106.3, Loreto
Plaza Shopping Center, Mission Santa Barbara, NS Ceramic, Santa Barbara
Bank & Trust, Santa Barbara County Education Office, Santa Barbara
News-Press, Smart Party Rents, Snapple Natural Beverages, UNICO National
• SB Chapter, Ventura Printing, Wells Fargo Bank, and Yardi Systems.
Further information about the Children’s Creative Project and I
Madonnari, is available by contacting Kathy Koury, executive director,
at 569–3873, ext. 102, or at www.imadonnarifestival.com.
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