www.montereycountynow.com JULY 31-AUGUST 6, 2025 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY 19 upon giving in and agreeing to work on the Sistine Chapel: How to transpose the message onto walls and from there, back to the community. Hijos del Sol’s first mural that survived and can still be admired is on the tall building of the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) center at 632 E. Alisal St., painted in 1995 and refurbished in June of this year. It depicts women and babies, portrayed as little angels and gives off almost religious vibes. According to Ortiz, street walls are a community canvas and murals are the “least selfish” form of art, the one that forces the artist to shed their ego and any sense of artistic freedom. The project has to take so many elements under consideration—the surrounding architecture, the environment, the residents and the businesses around. As an example, Ortiz mentions a mural project he has been working on with the Arts Council for three years now. They were looking for a wall to paint local fieldworkers. Initially, the council wanted to paint it at Midtown Lane in the downtown neighborhood. “But fieldworkers don’t go to Midtown Lane,” Ortiz says. “One day I saw them loading on buses to go to the fields by Goodwill on East Alisal Street.” And that site was eventually picked for the mural that will soon be painted, representing Salinas’ rolling fields that feed the country with produce. ••• The Salinas City Center Improvement Association is composed of downtown Salinas property owners to invest in neighborhood improvements such as cleaning, security and beautification. Since property owners happen to own walls, murals became the association’s favorite way to beautify the community. They have commissioned two murals to date—the Salinas Habitats mural on the wall of the building that is home to Patria restaurant created by Hijos del Sol, and a huge, art deco-inspired fox mural by Monterey artist Lisa Haas on the back of the Fox Theater. The fox was completed earlier this year with the help of 85-foot lifts. “Looking at a giant wall can seem intimidating,” Haas says. “But once you get into it, it’s not.” From the property owner standpoint, there is a similar mindset. “Murals are easy,” says SCCIA Downtown District Coordinator Greg Hamer. “You find an empty wall and if the owner agrees, you go to town.” The effect is a more colorful and safer city, where people gather in front of its murals, conversations get started and bad actors go away, Hamer says. Hamer says that he noticed that murals are rarely damaged by graffiti, but even if they are, SCCIA has a team—led by José Ortiz—to fix it. They are also working on slowly refurbishing older murals made by the Hijos del Sol team. Two new projects are in the works. One will be located at 201 Main Street and Seaside artist Hanif Wondir is already working on the project. The plan is for a 3-D immersive mural, a perfect selfie spot that allows people to be part of the mural and take “your new social media profile photo,” Hamer says. There are also plans to create a Narnia-themed mural at the back of ARIEL Theatrical, and a plan to paint the other side of Salinas Habitats. “These murals are not for tourists,” Hamer says. “They are for locals to show them someone cares for the community.” After all, the murals are expensive investments; many start at $10,000. SCCIA has sought outside foundation support to pay artists. It’s a win-win for the artists, the community and the business owners who get their walls painted for free and the art is then maintained and insured by the association and its contractors. ••• A few years ago, administrators at Santa Rita Union School District in Salinas got inspired while touring other schools to beautify their walls with murals. School officials reported that it increased students’ sense of ownership, and reduced vandalism in schools. The latest artwork in this initiative, which started in 2022, are three murals at Gavilan View Middle School. Students and artists worked together in an after-school program, from concept to design, to create a collective mural starting last year. “Getting them inspired and pumped “The real power is when you are physically there, in front of the mural.” MONTEREY’S PREMIER GERMAN CAR SPECIALISTS 249 DELA VINA AVE. 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