Year of the Dragon Mural Celebrates Asian Culture in Downtown Santa Barbara

As Santa Barbara artist DJ Javier puts the finishing touches on his latest mural — a vibrant “Year of the Dragon” piece commissioned by the Santa Barbara Trust for Historic Preservation (SBTHP)  as part of its upcoming Lunar New Year festival and art show on February 10 — curious onlookers stop by and marvel at the bold colors curling across an entire wall in a dusty courtyard outside Lovejoy’s Pickle Room on Canon Perdido Street.

Javier and fellow artist Tosh Clements have been working through the weekend on the mural, spray cans and paintbrushes in hand, racing against the clock as dark storm clouds lurk in the distance. On Thursday night, the pair work in the dark, sketching the outlines as Javier’s design is projected on the wall. All day Friday, they spray the colors — a luminous blue-green background and firehouse red, pale purple, and bright yellows and oranges of the dragon’s body. Saturday morning, they lay out Javier’s signature deep-black outline, finishing with just enough time left for the paint to dry before the February storm lands.

The Year of the Dragon mural and upcoming immersive art exhibition, titled The Dragon, were both the brainchild of SBTHP boardmember Kai Tepper, who worked closely with emerging artist Meiya Sidney to curate the show, which will feature work from local multigenerational Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) artists in the Presidio Chapel February 10-21.

Tepper, who was born and raised in Santa Barbara and also serves as the executive director of the Children’s Creative Project, said that having a mural celebrating AAPI culture in the downtown area has been a longtime dream. She said she grew up with her parents telling her about the history of Santa Barbara’s “Nihonmachi” Japantown and Chinatown — which sat right at the same site on Canon Perdido  — and when she joined the board at SBTHP she wanted to find ways to celebrate the city’s rich cultural heritage and AAPI artists.

“We have such a unique, interesting, complicated — but beautiful in many ways — culture in Santa Barbara,” Tepper said. “I wanted to find ways to get involved in programs that highlighted that.”

When the SBTHP’s Asian American History Committee started producing annual events such as the Asian American Film Series and the Asian American Neighborhood Festival, Tepper started putting the pieces together for a permanent mural.

Soon she met Javier, another first-generation AAPI artist born and raised in the city who is fiercely passionate about art and his cultural heritage. She floated the idea and asked if he’d do the design if she found the money and location, and not much later the project acquired grant funding through the state’s “Stop the Hate” initiative created for populations experiencing bias and hate crimes. 

The last piece of the puzzle was the wall. What’s now known as Lovejoy’s Pickle Room was historically called Jimmy’s Oriental Gardens, a Chinese restaurant opened in 1947 by the Chung family, who lived in the adjoining residence and operated the business for more than 60 years. The original Jimmy’s sign still hangs across the bar at the Pickle Room, as does the Chinese symbol for “Double Happiness” (囍) — a detail Javier incorporated into the Dragon mural on the wall outside.

“People don’t know what was there,” Tepper said of Santa Barbara’s Presidio Neighborhood, which has historically been home to Chumash, Spanish, Mexican, Euro-American, Chinese, and Japanese settlers over hundreds of years. “Our choice to do it there is very intentional.”

The new mural and art show, which will be held inside the Presidio Chapel (a spot Tepper points out was also once home to a Buddhist church), are both ways to “reenvision” the space, she said, by being inclusive of the entire history of the city.

“It’s a celebration more than anything of the people in the AAPI community that have helped create this area,” Tepper said. “It’s been really beautiful to see our community come together to support.”

On Saturday, The Dragon exhibit will be open during the Year of the Dragon Festival from 4 to 8 p.m. along with an outdoor Dragon Market featuring music by DJ-duo Hi-Jams; a live screen-printing station by MindGarden Research with designs by Javier; and desserts by Your Choice Thai Restaurant and Creaminal. Across the street, visitors can tour SBTHP’s Nihonmachi Revisited and Jimmy’s Oriental Gardens exhibits.  

All of the artists and vendors represent Santa Barbara’s up-and-coming first-generation AAPI and BIPOC creatives, a new generation of locals learning how to celebrate their pride in the city and their own cultural heritage. 

“It’s cool to be a younger person from Santa Barbara, especially being Asian American,” Javier said. “It’s like connecting the dots to create this energy in town.”