PHOTO SERIES
I Madonnari
When I Madonnari started in the late 1980s, it
was the only street painting festival of its kind in
the United States. Today, there are “chalk fests”
like it in towns and cities across the country.
Words and Images
by Scott London
IMadonnari was the name given to street painters in 16th- and 17th-century Italy, itinerant artists who traveled from town to town and city to city rendering images of the Madonna on sidewalks and in public squares. Like street musicians, the “Madonna painters” supported themselves by small donations—usually coins thrown to them by appreciative passers-by and festival-goers. Using chalks and handmade pastels, the artists sometimes created works of remarkable majesty and scale. But the art was always ephemeral, vanishing with the first rain.
The tradition of street painting lives on in cities across Europe and in a growing number of communities in North America. I Madonnari in Santa Barbara, California, is perhaps the best-known “chalk fest” in the United States. When it started in 1987, it was the only event of its kind in America. Today, there are dozens of festivals like it in towns and cities across the country.
The three-day festival, held each Memorial Day weekend in the plaza in front of Santa Barbara’s historic mission, typically draws crowds of 25,000 or more from across the United States. The art ranges from small chalk drawings by local artists to large-scale street murals by nationally-recognized street painters. There is also a special chalk-drawing area for young artists.
I Madonnari is a fundraiser for the Children’s Creative Project, an unusual program that provides visual and performing arts education to public schools in and around Santa Barbara. At a time when arts education has been all but eliminated from school budgets, entrepreneurial communities have to take matters into their own hands. I Madonnari represents one of the more successful initiatives of its kind—a community-building effort aimed at both making art and ensuring its survival in the local school system.
