News & Facts

Youth Art Mural Unveiling At Santa Barbara Airport

SANTA BARBARA, CA – Local youth have created an impressive 80 foot mural for the Santa Barbara Airport to welcome visitors and give the Airline Terminal area a friendlier atmosphere during building construction.  The mural entitled, “Postcards of Travel” will be ‘unveiled’ in a special ceremony with Mayor Schneider on Monday, July 19 at 10 a.m. at the Terminal.  This event will kick-off the new Art-In-Public-Places Program that was developed for the new Airline Terminal that is under construction and expected to be completed early next year.

The Airport-sponsored mural was a project of Santa Barbara Arts Alliance, a special program of Neighborhood & Outreach Services (NOS) of the City of Santa Barbara Parks & Recreation Department. Local and underserved youth were recruited by NOS staff to participate in the project on a volunteer basis. Participants were involved from the early stages of project conceptualization, design, and final mural painting. Photographic images and tours of the Airport were provided to the participants to inspire the student artists.  

Youth participants volunteered over a three-month period to work on the project under the direction of Carlos Cuellar, a local artist and muralist.  Mr. Cuellar provided the youth, who had no previous art training, with two initial weeks of art instruction, including an overview of the importance of having art in public places.  In addition to the hands-on art instruction, many of the student artists decided to join the Parks and Recreation Department Job Apprenticeship Program which provides paid on-the-job training in the summer months.

The Santa Barbara Arts Alliance creates a positive social, and economic impact in our communities by providing at-risk youth with art related programming that is fun and relevant to their social network. Overall, the Arts Alliance reduces and/or minimizes all forms of vandalism, violence and youth delinquency, and thus less public maintenance expenditures. It successfully helps our youth to re-integrate into the community by providing one-on-one guidance and education to help them make better decisions. 

Mayor Schneider will speak to the importance of the Santa Barbara Arts Alliance at the Unveiling Ceremony on Monday, as will Airport Director Karen Ramsdell, Carlos Cuellar, as well as a few of the 26 student artists that contributed to the creation of the Airport mural.