Artists Terri Tabor and Cheryl Guthrie created a mountain lion along the slopes of Grass Mountain in the Santa Ynez Valley. 
Bud Bottoms and his friends, the dolphins. A memorial to an extrordinary human being whose legacy is large. 
Ann Hefferman, artist. 
Adam Peot, artist. 
Artist Emma Patterson’s work drew a different kind of pregnant pause. 
Brain and the Beauty 
Cecelia Linayao, artist. 
Jay Schwartz, artist. 
Artists Jen LeMay and Jessie Alstatt created this tropical scene. 
Jenna was the artist of this work. 
Joel Yau, artist. 
Katie McLean, artist. 
Artist Lisa Jones created spectacular colors of candy in a crystal glass and Ball jar. The translucence of the glass is amazing. 
Artist Ayde represented Santa Barbara’s sister city, Puerto Vallarta. 
Sharyn Chen was this year’s featured artist, working at the steps of the Santa Barbara Mission. 
Vicki Richtman, artist. 
Melody Spring’s work. 
Paige Kieding was the artist of this work. 
DMW@Madonnara, artist. 
Island foxes frolicked in this work sponsored by the Santa Barbara Zoo. 
Phyllis Chiu, artist. 
Lysa, artist.
While most people are thinking vacation time or heading out for a three-day holiday, Memorial Day weekend has always meant something much different for me.
Once a year is my time to visit with a good friend from San Francisco, John Danner, and to anchor myself near the steps of the Santa Barbara Mission for the I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival. J.D., as he is known by his many friends, is a retired San Francisco firefighter who, like me, loves the spirit that is evoked by the event.
John not only spends the weekend here photographing the art but at other festivals throughout California so he not only knows the artists but has a much better sense of Santa Barbara’s niche in the world of street painting.
Together, we have a great time, get to watch some of the best artists from around the state create their magic, along with our own gifted artists, and visit with old friends who we often only see during the festival.
Lasting Connections
On the simplest of levels, I Madonnari raises a good amount of money for the nonprofit Children’s Creative Project, which provides a variety of art programs for children not normally exposed to the visual and performing arts.
The CCP, administered by the Santa Barbara County Education Office, is an absolutely vital project, given the paucity of funds in our local schools. It is something that its director, Kathy Koury, should be thanked over and over for her development and support since its inception in the 1980s.
But on a level much more important to me, the festival brings some of California’s best chalk art painters into our community, providing them with the opportunity to create something powerful and enduring, and allowing us to share those moments with them.
What I’ve learned over time is that the festival is as much about bringing people together as it it is about the art. Many of the artists have been a part of I Madonnari for as long as I’ve been photographing the event. For them, the festival has become an annual reunion, a time to say hello, chat about old times and share each other’s art with one another.
Emerging Art
The festival is special for a number of reasons: mostly it is the artists themselves, who come from hundreds of miles away to participate. The work is grueling and the canvas, a rough, cracked and aging asphalt, is a difficult medium to work with — at best.
The sun can be bright and unyielding, and the work is done at ground level and hunched over; the artists contort themselves at times to reach across what they’ve just created to complete another part of the painting.
Yet as J.D. and I walk around and watch the paintings emerge over the three days — from what were at first rough outlines of the finished work to become amazingly deep, rich and complex works of art — what shines through most is the sheer joy with which the artists work. There is a clear love of what they do, despite its ephemeral nature.
The I Madonnari chalk art, by its nature, is like the butterfly emerging from its cocoon to become something vibrant and alive. What is dull, black asphalt on Saturday morning will become fine works of art by Monday evening.
Threat of Rain
For days before the artists were set to begin work on their paintings, the threat of rain loomed over the festival. The various weather apps varied in their predictions, with some calling for a slight change of showers every day to others forecasting a 60 percent to 70 percent likelihood of rain on Sunday, the critical day for most of the artists, when they shift from a focus on detailed work in small areas to begin filling in larger parts of their art.
A good day on Sunday means plenty of time to add the details on Monday that create the finished work.
Though there were a few scattered showers Sunday, I was amazed at how quickly the artists were able to throw large plastic sheets over the paintings and tape down the edges to prevent water from seeping onto them.
In all, perhaps only an hour was lost until the rain passed and the tarps were removed. We dodged a major bullet.
What the storm did, however, was reduce the size of the crowds, which provided J.D. and me time to walk about a bit more and take a few minutes more at each of the paintings.
Not all of the paintings were what you might call “works of art,” but the love and the delightful energy that the artists put into them came through loud and clear.
The festival is not about winners and losers but in the participation in something larger than themselves. As we walked around, we both began to sense that this year might have been one of the best ever.
Monday Afternoon
By midafternoon Memorial Day, many of the paintings were almost complete, with details here and there remaining to be filled in. Overall, there was a sense of relief that the art was almost finished.
“Let’s walk from one end to the other,” I said to J.D., “and see how many we really, really like.”
Armed with my phone, I took a picture of each of the ones we would want to photograph Tuesday morning.
There was an absolutely fantastic painting by the visiting artist from Puerta Vallarta that we could not take our eyes off. Then we turned around to an expansive view of a mountain lion working its way through the golden poppies at Grass Mountain that was equally as evocative.
But even as captivating as these larger paintings were, some of the smaller ones were just as special. My favorite perhaps was the one on the far upper corner that depicted Bud Bottoms and his dolphins with a background of fiery orange colors.
It would be easy to go on and on about many of the others, but as we reached the last of the chalk art near the fountain, I counted up the number of paintings that we both agreed were special.
“I’ve taken 56 photos,” I told J.D. “That’s close to half or more of all of the paintings. That’s amazing.”
I wondered how I would get all of the paintings processed and into a gallery in the next few days. J.D. and I had always tried to put together a shared list of what we liked the best, perhaps narrowing it down to the top five or 10 paintings.
We walked over to an amazing drawing by a Bay Area artist named Jenna of a basket of fruit.
“What do you think?” I asked J.D. “Do you have a favorite or two?”
“I’m still thinking there are at least 10 paintings here you could argue are the best,” he replied. “But I’d be lying if I didn’t say there are at least another 10 that might be just as good.”
He ticked off a list of the ones near us and stopped counting when he got to 10.
“And that’s just what we can see from here,” he added.
“Wow!”
By Memorial Day evening, most of the paintings had been completed and the artists were slowly putting away their pieces of chalk and gathering up their belongings. Three days of knees bent and bodies crouched over the paintings had left most of the painters stiff and sore.
There was a sense of relief that the work was done, but the smiles on their lips and the gleams in their eyes connoted a sense of accomplishment that could not be denied.
It was time to celebrate.
Tuesday Morning
J.D. and I have made it a tradition to meet one final time early on Tuesday morning to photograph the finished art. To do that means getting up at first light.
I was up a little after 5 a.m., hopeful for early morning sunshine and, when I opened the door, the sky was clear. The clouds were gone and it was going to be a great morning for photographing the finished works.
I was at the mission at 6:15 a.m. with my camera in one hand and an 8-foot bright yellow ladder in the other. Just as I got the ladder set up, I saw J.D. park near my van. After a last sip of coffee, we were ready to go.
At that time of morning there were only a half-dozen or so others out and about, which was perfect for taking pictures and not getting in anyone’s way. Before we started, we took a few minutes to walk about and do a bit of critical analysis of each of the paintings. We looked at the overall feeling of the images, the use of color, the attention to detail, the sense of proportion.
We naturally gravitated to some of the chalk art paintings. Some were brilliantly colorful; others intricately designed; still others with subject matter that provoked emotion.
Over the next several hours, J.D. and I moved from spot to spot, holding the ladder for each other, and in the process gradually narrowing down our list of favorites.
Barely narrowing it down, that is. There were so many. I want to say I had a favorite, but just as I settled on one, I would turn and find another I simply couldn’t say wasn’t as good. Then another, and another.
“I’m baffled,” I tod J.D., “there are just too many that I simply love.”
Instead of choosing, I’ve put together a galley of images at my website, The Nature Photographer. They are in no particular order, ordered simply by the title I’ve given to each.
— Noozhawk outdoors writer Ray Ford can be reached at rford@noozhawk.com. Click here for his website, SBoutdoors.com. Follow him on Twitter: @riveray. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook. The opinions expressed are his own.