Vote for Pedro

The first time I became aware of Pedro de la Cruz, was soon after the 2018 Montecito Debris Flow catastrophe. I was new to town, and within six months of our family settling in Montecito, the Thomas Fire and subsequent mudslide wreaked havoc upon our streets, school, homes, jobs, and community. Pedro created an illustration of a California bear with mature trees and a red-tiled roof village upon its back all encircled by a heart — it became a unifying graphic for the Santa Barbara region, which said “Montecito Strong” painted across the bottom. It was everywhere on flyers, across social media, announcing fundraisers. The feeling of his drawing was tender and optimistic. It reminded me of how our village had felt before these deadly events. That it had been a place of sunshine, not mud.

Pedro’s career really hit it’s stride during the pandemic. He painted and painted. He marketed and marketed. And he communicated his family’s backstory in a defiant and honest way: his parents were from Tijuana, they moved to Santa Barbara to improve the circumstances of their life, and raised Pedro as a well-embedded Santa Barbaran kid. It was in high school that he discovered that he loved art. In his twenties he worked at Saks Fifth Avenue to cover the costs for his wife and family, and put his painting aside for a period. By 2020, Pedro had been back at painting long enough to have developed his style and presence in town to such a degree that Santa Barbara Magazine selected his artwork to grace the cover of the 45th anniversary issue. It’s Pedro’s tenacity, hunger to try new techniques, paired with his skill in always relating his work back to place — to Santa Barbara — that has cemented his place in town. He is certainly one of Santa Barbara’s most beloved local artists. I would argue that this is due to his relentless appreciation of our landscape, architecture, color palette, and material culture. People outside of Santa Barbara buy his art because they want to live with a joyful shard of our town’s magic.

I’ve come to know Pedro better in recent years through our artists salon, The Rough Drafters. We meet once a month — about eighteen of us if we all show up — and work on exercises or follow prompts that aide in fine tuning our individual disciplines. Among us are architects, painters, fiber artists, writers, interior designers, a chef, illustrators — we seem to find common ground in the region of creativity as it relates to commerce (i.e. what to charge, how to get creatively un-stuck, and where to find the best deals in shippers.) It’s been five years so far of this extraordinary group, and Pedro is decidedly our group cheerleader. If anyone has an art show, a book reading, a lecture, Pedro is all over social media promoting his colleague, slinging compliments over our art salon text thread, offering words of support, and treating his fellow Rough Drafters like his teammates. It’s remarkable — not everyone with talent also embodies a healthy generosity of spirit.

I had a really hard week last week. Big, tumultuous things brewing in my family’s life (blast you Year of the Fire Horse.) I’d holed myself up in the studio to work my way out of the darkness until unannounced, Pedro knocks at the door with two Handlebar coffees in hand. I burst into tears. This is what friends do — they show up for no reason at the right time, pick you up off the ground, dust you off, and tell you to get back to the work you love. (If you are a gentleman artist like Pedro you also kindly offer a big box of unused cold press Arches watercolor paper to lift an artist’s spirit!) Little acts of kindness are Pedro’s way. All of us in The Rough Drafters have been a recipient of it. Last week it damn near burned me with it’s sunshine.

Thanks Pedro. You have my vote.

We have space for a few new clients! I love a creative challenge from hand-painted wedding invitations to hotel identity to restaurant menus to essays to unhinged ad campaigns.

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