By Blair Looker, GEF Board Member
I’ve been street painting since 1989, and it is my favorite of all my artistic expressions. Santa Barbara’s iMadonnari Festival is the “Mothership” of chalk festivals in the US. In the past, I’ve traveled all over to paint in festivals as far away as Mexico and Japan. Whereas it is hard on body, it is good for the soul.
I use my hands as brushes with energy that comes straight from the heart. Some of the chalks I use are “store bought” but many others are home-made using a combination of pigments and a beeswax emulsion binder. This results in imperfectly blended colors that practically melt into the hot asphalt creating brilliant and unexpected results.
When I first started practicing the art of large scale performance paintings, I used master works to help me hone my skills, but since 2006 all my paintings have been original compositions.
Perhaps 2022’s “Love song To Ukraine” is my favorite painting of late. After doing a lot of research, I fell in love with the blazing, hopeful energy of this young Ukrainian girl in native clothing and “vinok,” a type of floral headdress whose tradition stretches back over 1000 years. (She wears wheat and poppies but they come in all sizes and types, and are part of a wider Ukrainian cultural revival.)
I also loved engaging with numerous Ukrainians who attended the festival and happily recognized their culture shining up at them from the pavement. Photos taken here in Santa Barbara quickly found their way to back Ukraine, which I found fulfilling. I painted a love song, and it felt like somebody was listening.