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More than 1,300 turn out for annual SB Museum of Art event KENNETH SONG / NEWS-PRESS PHOTOSThe altar displays a number of memorials created by San Marcos High School students during the Day of the Dead family day at the Santa Barbara Museum of Art on Sunday.
More than 1,300 people wishing to pay their respects turned out Sunday for the Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s annual Day of the Dead event, mirroring an interactive altar’s theme of bridges to build their own bridge between this world and the next.
“It’s a wonderful feeling,” Patsy Hicks, the museum’s director of education said of Sunday’s turnout. “It felt like a return to people feeling comfortable being together.”
For the 33rd year, the museum honored the Mexican tradition of remembering the dead with a display of altars created by students in the museum’s school and outreach programs and local community groups, including San Marcos High School, Montecito Union School, Quilt Project Gold Coast, SBMA’s Partnership with A-OK After-School Program, and SBMA’s ArtReach program.
At left, visitors try their hands at making art during the event. At right, young artists memorialized their loved ones at the event’s alters.People representing multiple generations stopped by to see the mini-altars created by more than 300 students, and also community and museum members, displayed as part of 14 larger altars submitted by schools and five to six more by the community, Ms. Hick said.
Teens working with Museum Teaching Artists Nicola Ghersen and Jason Summers during SBMA’s Teen Master Class created an interactive altar display inspired by depictions of bridges in the museum’s collection.
Visitors took part in the interactive display by adding visual symbols of loved ones who died who they wanted to remember, Ms. Hicks said.
“It was really nice,” she said. “Little kids to grandparents, all were involved.”
At left, victims of gun violence are memorialized in the altar created by Moms Demand Action. At right, memorials fashioned by San Marcos High School students were featured at the Santa Barbara Museum’s Day of the Dead event on Sunday. Memorials to the loved ones of young artists were featured at the event, including, in the foreground above, a boy’s beloved dog, who he says “would jump on the pumpkins and on the clouds.” Visitors to the event had the opportunity to take part in various art activities.Santa Barbara Youth Poet Laureate Madeline Miller had planned to display her own interactive altar honoring the Earth and the lives lost due to climate change, but that didn’t pan out, Ms. Hicks said.
Instead, she created a “beautiful” sculpture honoring Mother Earth consisting of a globe representing the earth and feathers, “representing the ephemeral quality of the earth if we don’t take care of it.”
Día de los Muertos-inspired art activities for all ages also were offered in multiple locations. On the Front Terrace, visitors got to create skull charms and mini-altars. In the Family Resource Center, they enjoyed printmaking.
Ms. Hicks said the day celebrated both the personal stories and cultural traditions of those who took part in Sunday’s event, and the museum’s connection to the larger community.
“How meaningful it was to be involved today at the museum, a place of beauty,” she said. “It felt like a real bridge between their personal story and a communal story.”
email: nhartstein@newspress.com
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