Bella Terra

Buona Mattina, Signore e Signori!

June is a month that I always look forward to for the past 15 years. Since 1996, I’ve participated in the Youth In Arts Italian Street Painting Festival held in the second weekend in June. The festival in San Rafael is known as the largest of all street painting festivals in the United States. With more than 600 artists participating, Madonnari, or street painters, transform the streets using pastels on pavement to create more than 200 vibrant and colorful, large scale images.  This feast for the eyes is complimented by entertainment on two stages and a wide variety of Italian fare.

The Italian Street Painting Festival presented by Youth in Arts attracts more than 60,000 people to San Rafael from the Bay Area and all over the world every year in June. This year’s theme, Bella Terra, celebrates the beauty of our earth through art, music and cuisine. The event takes place on June 12 and 13 from 10am – 5pm.

The gallery you see here is a small collection of images I’ve gathered over the years. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything scanned pre-2001 although I have some images from when I first started in 1996. I’m sure you can pick out which ones those are.  As soon as I scan them, I’ll add them to this gallery. It’s an amazing event that I am proud to be part of year after year. What started out with two people has now grown to be a bigger group of enthusiastic folks from our office. This event, unlike others, isn’t a competition which comes as a real blessing. We don’t get paid to do this. Our time and efforts are donated – just two days out of the year, and it benefits the arts programs in the North Bay.

I’m very grateful for the enthusiasm that my friends from Gensler show during this event. It’s a chance for us to relax and have fun, far away from the pressures at work. While it is hard work, as we’re on our hands and knees the entire weekend, it’s very fulfilling knowing that our efforts have helped a charitable group such as Youth in Arts.

I hope you enjoy the photos. More will be coming soon. I’m planning of creating a treat for everyone so make sure to stay tuned and keep coming back to check out the latest updates. You can also follow me on Twitter and Facebook for the latest photos and tweets during the event. Last year, thanks to Facebook, I met friends whom I haven’t seen in a long time all because of my daily status updates on Facebook.

I hope you enjoy the images I’ve included here and please let me know what you think. If you think the photos are impressive, you should see it in real life. They are AMAZING! There is so much talent at this event! We’re still deciding on a piece (not unusual as we’re usually pretty busy at work this time of the year). Do you have one you can suggest? I’d love to hear your ideas. Ciao!

Alas, we found a piece that we will recreate this coming weekend. The image is called “The Prodigal Son” by artist Brian Despain. To find out more about Brian, click here.