Memorial Day Means Colorful Displays

The annual I Madonnari Street Painting Festival returns to the historic Santa Barbara Mission this weekend for its 40th event. Some 40,000 people are expected to drop by not only to witness professional chalk artists labor for three days to create (under our watchful eyes)  spectacular drawings on the blacktop plaza. The festival is also rife with delicious Italian food, three days of nearly non-stop music, a grab bag of other festivities, and opportunities for kids to do their own sanctioned street art. There are a number of special activities to mark the milestone anniversary, including returning artists turning up to create a massive illustrated square as the weekend’s centerpieces. 

Visit https://ccp.sbceo.org/i-madonnari for details and a complete schedule for the free festival. 

It’s an explosion of color approximately as ephemeral as chalk drawing on asphalt but actually alive throughout its run. Give up? I’m talking of course about the beloved Butterflies Alive! exhibit that opens for the summer on May 23, the nearby Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History practically adjacent to the mission’s chalk festival. Visitors to the Sprague Butterfly Pavilion share the vibrant enclosed garden with nearly 1,000 live butterflies representing more than two dozen tropical species. It is a charmingly interactive display – the butterflies flutter freely about the vegetation and people, often alighting on enchanted visitors – and has been voted the best butterfly garden west of Virginia. And that’s a lot of West. 

Visit www.sbnature.org