Students and teachers were introduced to the art of Italian Street Painting on Friday. Madonnara Lisa Jones led the two-hour workshop meant to introduce Marin Catholic High School to this wonderful artform.
Blending colors
Students and teachers learning to transfer an image to the street
We then headed out to the street where we practiced using the tools of the trade and experimented with a variety of techniques.
Madonnara Lisa Jones demonstrating layering colors
Participants in the Marin Catholic Street Painting Festival, as well as high school student artists participating in the Youth in Arts Italian Street Painting Festival will also be able to exhibit their Street Painting designs at the “Paint the Streets” Art Show to be held at the Marin Youth Center May 14-June 14.
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The truth about street painting is that it is a spiritual artist ritual of painting the Madonna and the baby Jesus Christ on the street with home made pastels. The artist would put a basket out for money for donations so he could pay for supplies and buy himself some food. The artists were called Madonnaro or Madonnari for plural. In America for some Capitalistic reason organizations have started Italian Street Painting Festivals were the Organizations try to bring corporations into the Festival to sponsor an artist to paint an image on a square area marked out on the asphalt.
Now the artist puts hard work into the painting which the artist volunteers the time and effort yet gets nothing in return but a thank you. Which for some artists that is fine and good. The organizers keep most of the money I know of a few who make 100,000 dollars a year organizing one event from the pool of money that sponsors give to needy students for art supplies.
I have worked in Italy and France this is not the case. The artist gets paid a respected amount of money to participate. The Images painted are Sacred Images of the Catholic Faith.
Here is an example of Americans hijacking a concept and adapting it to a corporate ritual for so called cause that the money is funneled in a corupt way yet the artist are slaves to the ritual. The artists are disrespected and the beat goes on and on. Nothing changes.
I tell people who want to experience painting on the street go to Italy. Do not participate in these so called street painting festivals. Avoid them like the plague.
Thank you for your comment and for reading our blog. This post is a couple years old and Youth in Arts no longer sponsors a street painting festival. We are focused on our work providing arts education to over 30,000 children each year. We appreciate your commitment to the arts.