Santa Barbara Historical Museum will celebrate the opening of two new Project Fiesta exhibits honoring Old Spanish Days history with a party, 6:30-9 p.m. Thursday, July 23.
The event will feature live music, cocktails, dancing, and performances by the 2026 Spirit and Junior Spirit of Fiesta, Mariachi Sin Fronteras, and Elements Band.
This year’s Project Fiesta! exhibits are Arte de los Mantónes,a showcase of their collection of Spanish shawls, and Finding Saint Barbara, which explores the city’s patron saint and marks 100 years of her presence in Fiesta celebrations.
Tickets to the Project Fiesta! History Celebration are $65 for the general public and $55 for museum members. Museum admission is free during its regular hours of Wednesdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, noon-5 p.m., and Thursdays, noon-7 p.m. For more, visit www.sbhistorical.org.
“Finding Saint Barbara” in Fine Art and Pageantry
On Dec. 4, 1602, Spanish explorer Sebastián Vizcaíno sailed the central coast of “Las Californias” and named the channel Santa Barbara in honor of the saint’s Feast Day.
The city was officially established in 1782 with the founding of the Presidio. The exhibition reveals her story and how she was adopted as a civic symbol over the last century through religious iconography, sculpture, pageantry and personification.
An interactive call to action encourages locals and visitors to spot the city’s patron saint in public art and nearby landmarks.
“This city has been obsessed with St. Barbara,” said Emily Alessio, the museum’s director of education, who worked with guest curator Neal Graffy to organize the exhibition.
“She has become important to the city’s identity, not just our name but a symbol of home. She is everywhere in town, and not only during Fiesta,” Graffy said.
Saint Barbara was born in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) and converted in the early fourth century.
“Her father disapproved and locked her in a tower, to which she added a third window to represent the Holy Trinity,” said Alessio. “When she refused to break her faith, her father beheaded her and, in some stories, was struck down by lightning.”
One focus of the exhibit is the representation of Saint Barbara in fine art, and it features paintings and depictions from the museum’s collections, alongside those on loan from the Santa Barbara Mission Archive-Library and Santa Barbara Museum of Art, organizers said.
Among the featured works is a 17th-century painting attributed to Jacopo Vignali on loan from the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, which has a cannon near the tower, symbolizing heavenly lightning that avenged her. She is the patron saint of artillerymen, miners, firefighters, and those facing sudden death.
In the undated “Saint Barbara with Martyr,” attributed to Mexican painter Antonio de Torres (1666-1754), she holds a chalice and palm frond in the center, symbolizing her martyrdom, flanked by two smaller images – of her death and her father being struck by lightning.
In contrast is a contemporary sculpture by James Foster of the saint and her tower in bronze and stainless steel. Commissioned in 1965, it hung for years in the First Western Bank on State Street.
Among the other artifacts with depictions of the saint are several postcards sent to the museum by local history enthusiasts during their travels, a fruit crate label from a local grower, a historic souvenir plate featuring Saint Barbara among city landmarks, and a bottle from the Bythinia Water Company once located in Hope Ranch.
That bottle is among the items on loan from Graffy, along with a flag for the 1920 La Primavera fest