Solange Aguilar has been selected as the inaugural recipient of the Santa Barbara Half Art Prize recognizing an artist whose work will define the look, feel and spirit of the annual Santa Barbara Half Marathon.

The Santa Barbara Half Marathon is presented by HOKA and the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara (MCASB).

The Art Prize formalizes and expands a program the event has run since 2023, in which local artists have designed the finisher medals, participant shirts as well as merchandise carried by thousands of runners each November.

The 2026 event will feature Aguilar’s work, a collection spotlighting on the Golden Poppy, California’s state flower and one of the most recognizable native blooms of the Santa Barbara region.

The Santa Barbara Half Marathon and 5K returns for its sixth time on Sunday, Nov. 8, capping a week-long festival of movement, live music and community events spanning the city’s waterfront, Funk Zone, and historic downtown.

Registration is open at santabarbarahalf.com.

The partnership of art and movement pairs the Central Coast’s largest running event with its longest-running contemporary art institution around a shared premise: art and movement serve to push our mental and physical boundaries, organizers said.

“When combined, art and movement help us grow individually and collectively in so many different ways,” said David Monico, Santa Barbara Half Marathon event director.

“MCASB has spent 50 years giving Central Coast artists a place to be seen and a space for the community to be inspired,” he said. “This partnership allows us to build on its legacy by providing a unique canvas to share artists directly with thousands of runners.
“Together, in November, we’ll be creating a super bloom of movement in downtown Santa Barbara.”

“Contemporary art does its most important work when it meets people where they already are, not everyone can make it to the museum, but we imagine this partnership as bridge-building for the future,” said Frederick Janka, president of the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara Board of Trustees.

“MCASB has spent 50 years making room for artists on the Central Coast,” Janka said. “This partnership carries that effort out onto 13 miles of city street.

“There is something rare about a work of art that thousands of people take home around their necks and then keep on a hook by the door for years afterward.

“The Art Prize also does the unglamorous part; it commissions real work, pays an artist properly for it, and makes sure this region learns their name.”

Aguilar is a multimedia artist, poet and zinemaker whose practice moves between watercolor, collage, photography and the written word, with a focus on native plants, land relationships and Indigenous knowledge.

Their work has been published in News from Native California, collected by Harvard Library, and presented at venues including the Getty Center and the Santa Barbara Public Library, where Aguilar has led public talks on ethnobotany and ethical native plant gathering.

Aguilar previously created a painted piano for Pianos on State through MCASB, and launched their debut book of poetry “Red Like Earth” with Write Bloody Publishing at the museum earlier this year.

For 2026, Aguilar took up the Golden Poppy, placing a single poppy at the center of the metal design, petals open, with light radiating outward and ocean kelp framing the bloom

“I knew I had to represent Santa Barbara with a poppy,” said Aguilar. “Poppies are amazing. Literally known as cups of gold, these flowers burst forth from the earth and make the land glow.

“They close at night. They open when they’re ready to. They come back to the same ground year after year without being asked to.

“I wanted the people participating this year to carry the magic of this poppy and this special place with them so they know that they’re not just running anywhere. They’re running in Santa Barbara.”

Aguilar’s 2026 artwork and the full Santa Barbara Half Art archive can be viewed at santabarbarahalf.com/art. For more, visit santabarbarahalf.com.