Downtown Riverhead came alive with the arts Sunday afternoon, as the 29th annual Community Mosaic Street Painting Festival drew thousands of visitors to Main Street to create and view chalk art, enjoy live music and browse dozens of vendor booths.
The street-painting festival was an instant hit when it debuted downtown in 1996, initiated by Patricia Snyder, then director of the East End Arts School of the Arts.
The festival is inspired by “I Madonnari,” itinerant artists of 16th and 17th century Italy who created works of art in front of cathedrals to pay homage to the Virgin Mary. The first chalk art street painting festival in the U.S., the “I Madonnari Festival in Santa Barbara, California, dates back to 1987, modeled after Italy’s International Street Painting Competition in Grazie di Curtatone.
This year brought a couple of new features to the popular downtown event. The date of the event was moved from its traditional spot on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend to the Sunday after the holiday. (In the pandemic year of 2020, the festival was moved to a date in September.) Also, for the first time, the festival included vendors selling alcoholic beverages, such as local craft breweries.
In addition to watching works of art emerge from the pavement and enjoying live music, food and beverages, visitors were invited to take part in drum circles and lots of activities for kids.
RiverheadLOCAL photos by Emil Breitenbach Jr.
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