Ann traveled to northern Italy to participate in a streetpainting festival in the tiny town of Grazie di Curtatone, Lombardia.  Lombardia is south of Milan, between Mantova and Cremona.  The festival in Grazie is held annually to celebrate the Feast of the Assumption on August 14-15.  Artists have only twenty hours to complete their works and work all night after receiving the priest's blessing at sundown.   Anyone is welcome to participate in the festival in Grazie, but must paint religious imagery in order to compete.  Ann met friends from California  and created  a detail from Antonio Balestra's Adoration of the Shephards.

Ann working at 1:30 a.m.

The nearby town of Mantova is about five minutes away.

After working all night, roasting in the heat with fellow Santa Barbarans, Jane and Jean Luis Durand.

The California corner of squares.

Ann at the festival site - in front of the Santa Maria della Grazie church, by her completed creation.

As an aside,  Kathy Koury, the Executive Director of the Children's Creative Project, attended the festival over fifteen years ago and brought the i madonnari festival idea to Santa Barbara, and ultimately, to the United States, as festivals have sprouted up all over the country since that time.

In late October, Ann will be joining a small group of Santa Barbara streetpainters and Santa Barbara Mayor,  Marty Blum,  on a trip to the city's sister city, Toba.  The group plans to introduce the art of streetpainting to Japan at that time.