Zuly Carpio

Amy Depaul
Literary Journalism 21
27 May, 2015
Drawings at Your Feet
Free art, free music and food, what more can you want this Memorial Weekend? The
Childrens Creative Project, a non-profits 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 where artists draw chalk images of the Madonna in front of the Catholic Church.
However, this tradition has been slightly altered in California in which each artist is sponsored
with a 4x6 ft. or 12x12 ft. square ranging from $150 to $700 and each artist can choose what to
paint, and has no obligation to draw the Madonna.
Directly in front of the building of the Mission of Santa Barbara, there are roughly 150
people accumulated on the staircase looking over the artists shoulders, admiring their paintings
as they walk towards the chalk floor to look at other works. Though all the artist 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
paint a lotus and coy which is inspired by traditional Chinese coy painting, but took it more into
a water color direction that kind of took a life of its own.
On the other hand, Eliana Bohn, sponsored by her dentist, decided to draw a goddess
with a third eye with the moon phases directly above her head. The moon phases serve as a

representation of her dreaming. I had originally painted something similar for my mom, and I
liked it so I decided to expand the image here.
Tom Meaney, who sponsored himself, decided to make his drawing a little more personal
and came up with an image of his two younger kids with their puppies. Usually I take a day or
so to come up with the idea. I try to come up with an image of the kids thats interesting and then
I paint for two and a half days.
But the artists at work are only half of the picture. As the artists are settled in the concrete
area, the grass area is filled with grills, booths, guests and volunteers.
Towards the back of the grass area, there are approximately 30 grills, each one covered
with chickens, shish kebabs, hamburgers or hot dogs. Around the edges, there are at least five
booths selling the grilled food, while the others are selling t-shirts, ice cream cones or posters.
And in the middle, there are no less than 650 people sitting around the tables, conversing, eating
and having a good time.
Katy Koury, founder and director of the event, says 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 the 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 Childrens Creative Project.
The Childrens Creative Project is an organization under the county of Santa Barbara
education in which they fund to maintain the art programs in the local schools. Though they
started with only being able to serve 200 children at Franklin Elementary School, the project has
dramatically grown in which they can now help 50,000 children annually in roughly 80 Santa
Barbara and San Luis Obispo County schools and provide them with visual and performing arts
artists to instruct them.