About the Madonnari Arts Festival
The Madonnari Arts Festival is a yearly chalk art or street painting festival held in Baltimore, Maryland.
The Madonnari Arts Festival was founded by Michael Kirby in 2004. The first festival was held in Highlandtown in Baltimore and has been held yearly on the weekend after Labor Day in September in Baltimore. The most recent location for the Madonnari Arts Festival has been in Little Italy. Mr. Kirby spent close to ten years abroad as a Madonnaro and was awarded the title of Maestro Madonnaro in Grazie di Curtatone in Italy. Mr. Kirby returned to the city of his birth, Baltimore, and started the first Madonnari Arts Festival after traveling around the world participating and starting Madonnari Festivals.
Madonnari comes from the Italian language and means artists that create spectacular chalk drawings on the pavement made with soft pastels, pigments, and tempera paints. These beautiful works of art are ephemeral and only last until the coming rains. Madonnari have been creating chalk drawings for hundreds of years in Europe and have many titles such as Madonnari, Street Painters, Strassenmalerie, Screevers, Callejeros, and Chalk Artists. During the Renaissance in Italy, artists would travel from town to town during religious festivals and recreate religious icons in front of cathedrals and churches for tips in their baskets.
The Madonnari Arts Festival is a collaborative arts event that brings communities, residents, and businesses owners together with local and international artists over three days in Baltimore to create a festival that attracts tens of thousands of visitors. The Madonnari Arts Festival brought together 50 visual artists from around the world, 100 local performing artists, twenty participating schools, and 30,000 attendees. The mission of the festival is to showcase the exceptional talent, camaraderie, and creative spirit of Baltimore and to foster constructive dialogue and inspire innovative solutions to urban problems through the arts. The festival provides opportunities for local and international artists to create an image of their choosing on the streets of Baltimore over a 3 day festival using soft pastels provided by the festival. Each year the festival has had from 50 to 100 artists from locations across Maryland and the world working side by side producing images 10 x 10 feet and larger on the street.
The Madonnari Arts Festival works with Master Madonnari from all over the world to create the festival and hold numerous workshops for novices and experts. The festival includes lectures on the history of the Madonnari, slide shows, and hands on experience in creating 3D chalk drawings, magic, theater, and a children’s Madonnari Chalk Center.
