How could I ever imagine how dearly I would come to love crawling around on my hands and knees, scraping my hands over hot pavement all day? It all began more than a decade ago, while viewing my first I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival in Santa Barbara, California. It reminded me of the chalk drawings on the streets of Europe I had seen when I was in college.

Street painting began in Europe centuries ago, and may date back to the 1600s. It was a way to recreate and display the master paintings of the Madonna from inside the churches for the people out on the street. The artists creating the sidewalk art were called "I Madonnari". Many of these artists even today set a bowl by their artwork and passers-by toss coins of appreciation. Some art students and street people still support themselves this way in Europe.

The paintings in Santa Barbara, however, were recreations of all kinds of artwork, and some were originals. To my surprise and delight the following year, 1993, a chalk art festival was started in San Rafael, not far from my hometown just above San Francisco. Folding my career as an equine artist into the realm of sidewalk art, I based my work on a preexisting artwork and added the horse.

The medium was difficult at first. I had never liked to draw with chalk because it is so messy, dirty and it smears. Now, I love it for all those reasons. Before long the world appeared differently as leaves in the distance were scraped on the trees, and clouds above me were smeared across the sky.

My equestrian themes have not limited my selection of artists including the Parthenon Friezes of ancient Greece. They are my symbol of the earliest equitation. My first chalk painting in Santa Barbara included polo ponies I had drawn from nearby polo fields titled Polo Meditations. This chalk painting was made into an oil painting later on.

My ideas come from where my heart is at the moment. The year my filly, Ritza, was being born, each painting reflected an aspect of the experience. In the Beginning showed a foal, which seemed to rear beside the Greek Frieze, her shadow spilling across it in a true trompe l¹oeil.

I work with Renaissance masters like Titian, Caravaggio and Michelangelo, as well as modern artists like Man Ray and Salvador Dali. When my filly was about to begin her training, I was enchanted by the prospect of being able to ride her. I tried to create a visual image of that fantastic feeling of the romance of horseback riding as we imagine it in Ritza's Fantasy Ride. The following year Ritza's Reality Ride used Salvador Dali and my magnifying lens to show the scrutinizing concentration I try to impose on my riding and training in reality.

Last summer in Denver, I worked from the master, George Stubbs. His nervous Whistlejacket was placed in a huge Dutch still life of floral blossoms. The chestnut seemed to shy at the sight of an ant crawling along a stem. Horses and blossoms together became titled Beauty Lives.

The joy of the work has led me into teaching and travel. I have participated in the sidewalk art festival in Grazi di Curtatone, Italy, which inspired our first American festival. The contest in Grazie is completed in 24 hours in the middle of August. To beat the heat and the clock, we often work through the night. Winning my category moved me up a level each year of the competition. In two years I reached the top Maestro level, and two more years I was honored with the top prize in the international competition.

The Italian theme was continued last June in San Rafael, California, for their festival¹s tenth anniversary. Sixteen artists and several additional helpers worked together to recreate the entire Sistine Chapel ceiling. We were interviewed there on the CBS Sunday Morning Show.

This year I will participate as featured artist in both the Santa Barbara exhibit the last week in May and the Denver, Colorado, sidewalk exhibit taking place June 18-20, 2004. The Denver Festival named La Piazza del 'Arte is located in Larimer Square, in a chic old section of Denver.

The Santa Barbara exhibit titled I Madonnari ­ Italian Street Painting Festival is located at the Santa Barbara Mission on Memorial weekend, May 29-31, 2004. The Santa Barbara artwork will be based on a huge painting by Rosa Bonheur titled The Horse Fair. It shows draft horses leaping around, barely contained by powerful bareback riders. Of course, I will add my own touches.

For more information about the The Denver Festival in June, La Piazza del ŒArte, contact Joe Lauer of the Larimer Arts Association at 303-685-8124.