Maps to the art stars: Artists open up on the 14th Annual Santa Barbara Studio Artists Tour

"It's a great opportunity to meet new clientele and to showcase my new series," says artist Michele Zuzalek of the Santa Barbara Studio Artists Tour. This is the 14th year that local artists have been opening their studios to the public. Kenneth Song/News-Press photos
“It’s a great opportunity to meet new clientele and to showcase my new series,” says artist Michele Zuzalek of the Santa Barbara Studio Artists Tour. This is the 14th year that local artists have been opening their studios to the public.
Kenneth Song/News-Press photos

Buyers, collectors, fellow curious artists, locals and art tourists: all will be converging this weekend for the 14th annual Santa Barbara Studio Artists Tour. With over 30 painters, sculptors, photographers and mixed media artists opening up their studios to visitors, it’s a chance to see these creative beings in their natural habitat, their studios.

That might be a converted garage or a guest house or a barn or a shed. And the artist might be working in organized chaos or be impeccably neat. But the studio tour remains endlessly fascinating to many.

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Buried treasures: Carpinteria Sea Glass Festival packs them in on opening day

Lisa Karey of M&L Coastal Creations helps a customer shop during Saturday's Sea Glass Festival in Carpinteria. KENNTH SONG/NEWS-PRESS
Lisa Karey of M&L Coastal Creations helps a customer shop during Saturday’s Sea Glass Festival in Carpinteria.
KENNTH SONG/NEWS-PRESS

Was the first Carpinteria Sea Glass Festival a success? You could ask the two lines of eager people that stretched down Linden Avenue and then around each corner of the block, just waiting to get into the marketplace.

Or you could ask the 800 people who rolled through the building in just one hour, looking at all sort of handmade jewelry.

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Chalk of Fame: Mission steps burst with the color of the I Madonnari festival

Chalk artists are hard at work Saturday in the I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival at the Santa Barbara Mission. The festival continues through Monday. KENNETH SONG/NEWS-PRESS PHOTO
Chalk artists are hard at work Saturday in the I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival at the Santa Barbara Mission. The festival continues through Monday.
KENNETH SONG/NEWS-PRESS PHOTO

“I’m impressed with the crowd already,” said Kathy Koury, the organizer of the I Madonnari festival that opened Saturday at the steps of the Old Mission. “I’m happy but tired!”

It takes a lot to put together I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival, now in its 29th year. By the end of the three-day Memorial Day weekend, the entire blacktop outside the Mission will be covered with beautiful works of art. Some are originals, others are copies of old masters, and some challenge the eye with tricks of forced perspective.

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29th annual I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival set to open this coming weekend

Blair Looker, featured artist of this year's I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival, holds one of her sketches that will be created in chalk at the Santa Barbara Mission next weekend. HELENA DAY BREESE/NEWS-PRESS
Blair Looker, featured artist of this year’s I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival, holds one of her sketches that will be created in chalk at the Santa Barbara Mission next weekend.
HELENA DAY BREESE/NEWS-PRESS

The black asphalt outside the Santa Barbara Mission will once again bloom with color this coming weekend when it hosts the 29th annual I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival.

Artists – from touring professionals in the street-painting scene to first-time volunteers and children – will cover the grounds outside the Mission with a patchwork of chalk paintings of their own design.

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Art walk turning 50

Tourists take the art walk along Cabrillo Boulevard on a Sunday in December 2007. MICHAEL MORIATIS/NEWS-PRESS
Tourists take the art walk along Cabrillo Boulevard on a Sunday in December 2007.
MICHAEL MORIATIS/NEWS-PRESS

What started as the dreams of an architect wanting to replicate Mexico has turned into a staple of Santa Barbara’s beachside tourism scene.

The Santa Barbara Arts and Crafts Show, which lines Cabrillo Boulevard every weekend, celebrates its 50th anniversary Sunday.

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UCSB grad and philanthropist helps in a major L.A. renovation

Peter Mullin of the Mullin Automotive Museum in Oxnard stands with a 1938 Bugatti Dubonnet Hispano-Suiza H6C "Xenia." Mr. Mullin is leading a renovation of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. HELENA DAY BREESE/NEWS-PRESS
Peter Mullin of the Mullin Automotive Museum in Oxnard stands with a 1938 Bugatti Dubonnet Hispano-Suiza H6C “Xenia.” Mr. Mullin is leading a renovation of the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles.
HELENA DAY BREESE/NEWS-PRESS

Peter Mullin’s love of cars, especially French ones, has already resulted in one beautiful building, the Mullin Automotive Museum, tucked away in an industrial area of Oxnard.

Now the collector, philanthropist and UCSB graduate is about to help another similar space an hour south complete a successful and dazzling remodel.

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