Italian Street Painting :: Ordway Center for the Performing Arts

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Italian Street Painting Festival

Art for After Hours

Imagine: Market Street in Landmark Plaza filled with vibrant works of chalk art created by master artists. At the 2006 Festival, four master madonnari-the term for Italian street painters, as early artists rendered images of the Madonna-will create four 12' X12' street paintings. Along side of them regional artists will paint smaller compositions, and students and families will add their own touches on the community paintings.

Historically, madonnari created images on sidewalks and public squares using colored chalk and lived on donations and small commissions. With the rain, both the painters and the paintings vanish, creating a clean canvas to start again.

Today, madonnari have expanded their subject matter and are no longer confined to the Madonna. Many street painters render more complicated creations that take several days or weeks to complete. Street paintings have become an organized Festival event and an unsanctioned expression in many parts of the world.

Artists working on the outdoor installation will talk with audience members about the nature of their work while it is happening - the choices they make about what to portray and why, how it's done, where they learned how to do it, why they do it, and where else in the world this newest "performance art" is happening. Each day, the work changes and progresses. By the Festival Family Weekend the street will be blanketed with layers of chalk, creativity, heart, and community!

Make sure to check out the completed street paintings on the Family Weekend. The madonnari will be working all week on their compositions and will be on hand over the weekend to answer questions and assist you in adding your touch to the community street paintings. In addition, local artists will contribute to the creations throughout the week.

VISITING MADONNARI

Rod Tryon

Rod Tryon has been street painting for the past 19 years. He visited the inaugural "I Madonnari Street Painting Festival" in Santa Barbara, CA in 1987 (the first street painting festival ever held in the U.S.) and knew it was something he had to do. He has participated in the Santa Barbara festival 17 times including appearing as the featured artist in 1993.

Rod has also been featured in numerous other street painting events worldwide. He's created featured pieces for festivals in California, Oregon, Utah, Florida, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Rod assisted in developing a street painting festival and seminar in conjunction with the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts, at Penn State, PA., one of the largest art and music festivals in the eastern U.S.

In Nov., 2005, he was invited to create a piece for a street painting festival in Monterrey, Mexico and in Dec., 2005 he joined a team of artists in creating a featured street painting for the Hong Kong Youth Arts Festival in Hong Kong.

In June, 2003 Rod was invited to join 11 other featured artists to recreate the entire Sistine Chapel ceiling in half size. The street painting measured about 30 feet by 70 feet and took the twelve artists along with a team of about 8 architectural border renderers 7 days to complete. The painting was the featured piece of the "Youth in Arts Italian Street Painting Festival" in San Rafael, CA.

Rod also does street paintings for special events. He's created paintings for the Lynx Toyota Atlantic Auto Racing Team, the Kinko's Kawasaki Motorcycle Racing Team, the opening of the UCSB Arts & Lectures season of performing arts, Kinko's corporate conventions, and a documentary film "Life beyond Earth" created for PBS television, filmed at the Bonneville Salt Flats, Utah. In July, 1999 Rod created a street painting at the second annual "Anguilla International Arts Festival", held on the Caribbean island of Anguilla, British West Indies.

Rod enjoys recreating works by the "old masters" for his street paintings. He feels this venue is a great way to bring fine arts to those people who might never visit a gallery or museum. In addition, the people who do recognize the classic paintings enjoy seeing these familiar images in a new unique setting. Rod also creates original 3-D pieces and street paintings from photographs. He's often asked if it's difficult to deal with the fact that his artwork is so temporary. He answers that question this way:

"Street painting is very much like performance art. Although the finished product is important, the act of creating the painting is as significant as the finished piece. The

Ephemeral nature of the art form only makes it more interesting and unique for the audience. It is a special gift to those who are lucky enough to experience that particular artwork being created. Interacting with onlookers, discussing the image and answering questions about the piece is a large part of the joy of the creation."

When he's not at a street painting festival; Rod works as a freelance artist focusing on pastels on paper and canvas, acrylic paintings, graphic design, pastel illustration and computer illustration.

Rod grew up in Shartlesville, Pennsylvania (a small rural town in the Pennsylvania Dutch Country.) In 1977 he received a Bachelor of Fine Arts/Advertising degree from Kutztown University in Kutztown, PA. In 1979 he moved to Santa Cruz, CA where he became the graphic artist for the Northwest Division of Kinko's Copies. In 1986 he moved to Santa Barbara, CA after being promoted to national art director for Kinko's corporate offices in Ventura, CA. He now lives in Cutchogue, Long Island, NY.

Some of Rod's street painting work may be viewed on the website: www.artforafterhours.com

Joel Yau

A successful commercial artist, Joel Yau brings to his fine art a wealth of visual knowledge and a curiosity to explore new ground. He works primarily in oils but is equally accomplished working with acrylics and pastels. And though the subject and medium may vary Joel's well-honed skills as a draftsman and designer are evident in all of his work.

"I've always been inspired by artists who use free expressive marks to create structure. I love John Singer Sargent's seemingly effortless technique and fresh approach to paint, Diebenkorn's sense of color and bold design and Gustav Klimt's sensitivity to line." Since Joel's work is informed by so many of the masters, his standards are indeed very high.

Joel also enjoys painting "en plein air" (outdoors). This has trained him to make quick and decisive observations, a skill which he now incorporates in all of his work.

Since 1997 Joel has participated in street painting festivals in major cities across the United States. These festivals allow him to collaborate with other artists, creating large format reproductions of many of the Old Masters work he admires such as Rossetti, Mucha, and Yoshitoshi. His skilled hands, outgoing personality and love of the art have made Joel a very successful street painter and his work in this arena has won many accolades and awards. In 2005 he was invited among 5 other seasoned chalk muralist to create their version of "The Birth of Venus" by Botticelli at the first Hong Kong Street painting festival event billed ‘Spectacollare'.

Joel holds a degree in Visual Communication from the University of the Philippines and a degree in Illustration from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. He currently works for Yahoo Inc. creating icons and illustrations for the web. Joel is also a seasoned graphic designer who has created work for Cirque du Soleil, Peanuts, Macy's, The Beatles, and Felix the Cat. He lives in sunny San Rafael, in beautiful Marin County just a few miles north of San Francisco.

Seth Sanders

Information coming soon.

Tracy Lee Stum

Tracy Lee Stum discovered street painting 9 years ago and has been a devotee ever since. She is considered by her madonnari peers, festival directors and viewers among the finest, active madonnari street painters today. For her, street painting is an art form that instantly captures an artist's creative essence and produces a unique dynamic between the viewer and the artist. An international award winning street painter, Tracy is actively designing and creating anamorphic or 3-dimensional appearing street paintings at many public festivals and corporate based events in the United States, Mexico, Europe and the Pacific Rim, such as Japan and Hong Kong.

Along with teaching street painting workshops worldwide, Tracy has been selected as team coordinating artist for several projects, including the recreation of Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel ceiling for the 2003 10th annual Youth In Arts festival in San Rafael, CA as well as a revised recreation of Botticelli's "Birth of Venus" for Hong Kong's first ever street painting festival in 2005. She has also street painted at the prestigious Getty Center in Los Angeles as well as working in the traditional mode of painting on the streets of Florence, Italy.

In addition to her international reputation as a highly sought after Madonnari, Tracy is well known for her murals, decorative painting and trompe l'oeil work through her studio Tracy Lee Stum Fine Art, in Ventura, CA. Clients include the Venetian Resort and Casino and Caesar's Palace, both in Las Vegas, as well as the Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel.

Ever the artistic entrepreneur, Tracy is now directing her design capacities toward a new direction - carpet designs in the hospitality industry, which were recently launched successfully for Milliken Carpet at the 2006 Hospitality Design Show in Las Vegas.

Ms. Stum is exclusively represented by Art for After Hours, an art consulting agency based in New York, working with them as their artistic consultant and West Coast representative. For additional details and to see more of Tracy's mural, decorative painting, and anamorphic streetpainting works, please refer to the Art for After Hours website at www.artforafterhours.com.

Background - Art for After Hours

Art for After Hours is an art consulting company with locations in New York City and Ventura, California. Our principal focus is to provide attractive, custom designed, high caliber artwork and innovative design as a part of product rebranding services and art related projects to corporate, hospitality, and casino/theme entertainment clientele worldwide.

These projects include large and small scale mural, decorative painting, trompe l'oeil and carpet design for architectural/interior design firms for casino/theme entertainment, Fortune 500 and private companies as well as ecclesiastical and private clients for luxury residences.

Art for After Hours is pleased to provide the services of professional Madonnari, or streetpainting artists such as Rod, Joel, Seth, and Tracy as well as other fine Madonnari streetpainters for indoor and outdoor streetpainting projects for public festivals and corporate/tradeshow events.

Contact: Anthony Cappetto or Wendy Stum; Art for After Hours, (718) 777-5850

Email(s): acappetto@artforafterhours.com; wstum@artforafterhours.com