Thousands of visitors made a pilgrimage to Santa Barbara Mission for the 2019 I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival over the Memorial Day weekend to watch masterful artists at work against a backdrop of live music and food booths. The free, three-day event found artists racing against the clock and braving rain to finish 150 imaginative and...

Carefully crafting on their hands and knees, artists are making images appear on the asphalt in front of the historic Santa Barbara Mission for the annual I MadonnariStreet Painting Festival. Featured Artist Sharyn Chan sat in the centerpiece location leaning into her work and saying, "this is the first chalk festival in the nation.  It's  the moth...

The Santa Barbara Symphony continues its 65th Anniversary season with two nights of Giuseppe Verdi's masterpiece Messa da Requiem on Saturday, April 13 at 8:00 pm and Sunday, April 14 at 3:00 pm at The Granada Theatre. Both performances feature Maestro Nir Kabaretti conducting, alongside soloists Colleen Daly, Natascha Petrinsky, Harold Meers, Luca...

Cari Amici – Dear Friends, it is with great pleasure that we announce the 2019 movie line-up of Cinema Italiano Classico. This year we are presenting two movies starring the most famous couple of Italian Cinema: Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni and Sophia Loren in her Oscar winning performance of “Two Women.” They will make you laugh and cry;...

In a bizarre meeting by even Santa Barbara City Council standards, the council voted 6-0, with one abstention, to recognize Italian Heritage Day and Indigenous Peoples' Day on the same day — Columbus Day, the second Monday of October. The discussion featured a power outage while a Franciscan Friar was speaking. Councilman Oscar Gutierrez lectured t...

An organized effort is afoot to petition the City of Santa Barbara to recognize the second Monday of October — traditionally celebrated as Columbus Day — as Indigenous Peoples Day instead. The Tribal Trust Foundation, a Santa Barbara–based organization that supports and preserves indigenous cultures all over the world, is working with the Barbareño...

St. Vincent’s is celebrating 160 years of service to the Santa Barbara community with their participation in the I Madonnari – Italian street painting festival. St. Vincent’s will have two drawings celebrating the outstanding ministry of the Daughters of Charity during these years.   The first illustration depicts the Daughters of Charity who estab...

Thousands of spectators strolled along the Santa Barbara Mission’s plaza Sunday to watch artists at work during the free I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival, which runs through Monday. Roughly 140 large-scale images are being drawn with pastel chalk, and they stretch across the pavement in front of the mission. The 32nd annual gathering —...

“It’s just a feast,” says Adele Spalluto Hubbard as she reflects on her family’s personally vetted retail collection of handmade, hand-painted Italian ceramics. “They are exactly like a painting, hand done with a brush, painstakingly made with love, and that’s the charm.” Thirty-five years ago, her father, Ben Spalluto, an Italian immigrant, starte...

Cari Amici – Dear Friends, it is with the greatest pleasure that we announce this special event.  With the title of Vino e Pizza, a Presentation and Tasting of Italian Wines, we are proposing the unusual joining of two  traditional Italian culinary icons: The multi-flavored pizza much- loved by everyone all over the world and three excellent iconic...