“I don’t have a yard at home, so this is the perfect way for me to get out and enjoy the plants. It’s also a great way to be a part of the community,” said Sharon Foster while attending to roses at the mission’s rose garden. Foster has been volunteering with the Santa Barbara Rose Society for a year and a half and is visiting this fully blooming plot for the first time since cutting the plants back in January. The volunteers rake, pull leaves, deadhead flowers, and generally keep an eye on the roses to keep the garden in tip-top shape.
“This is all just for fun and pushing around the paint and to get outside instead of being inside,” said Mike Champe while painting a rendition of the mission. He began this painting in December. It will take him another two hours to finish, and then it will be another in his collection of more than 600 pieces. Champe is a cartoonist who sells his work at the Sunday Arts and Crafts Show and paints landscapes and architecture for fun.
