A tiger salamander now looks down over 211 3rd St. Below it, a large bowl stands in for the farms that ring Hollister. Oakland muralist Joey Rose painted both on the wall at Hollister Super during this summer's mural festival. She told BenitoLink the salamander is "another important local species here," and the bowl is meant "to kind of symbolize the local agriculture here."
Rose's wall is one of five murals painted downtown during the San Benito County Arts Council's first Visión Art Fest. Taken together, the five tell you something about this downtown. They were planned as a single walk, and the best of them are about Hollister itself: its market, its wildlife and its fields.
Why the walls sit close together
Artists worked on the murals from Aug. 25 through Sept. 7, 2026, and the Arts Council led a public walking tour on Sept. 18. Executive director Jennifer Laine told BenitoLink the council wanted the artwork concentrated downtown "to create a public art walking tour that would allow people to see the whole project in a single day."
The money shaped the project too. The council won a $25,000 Impact Project Grant from the California Arts Council. Laine said that amount "would not be enough to pay the artists for the size and scale we had in mind," so the council asked local sponsors to help. The donors and sponsors named in BenitoLink's October follow-up include Edward Jones, Corbin, Shawn Herrera, the San Benito County Office of Education, Hollister Paint Co., A Tool Shed and Paicines Ranch. Two of those are downtown hardware and paint names, and one is a ranch out on Highway 25. The project was funded by people who know these streets.
Visitors noticed how easy the route is. Alejandra Ramirez, who came with the Arts Council for Monterey County, told BenitoLink the walk was "super accessible and easy to do."
The five walls, A through E
The Arts Council's Visión Art Fest guide labels the murals by letter and gives the size of each wall.
| Wall | Location | Artist(s) | Wall size |
|---|---|---|---|
| A | San Benito County Office of Education, 5th St. | MJ Lindo and Joshua Lawyer, Rough Edge Collective | 20 ft wide x 11 ft high |
| B | Cheung Sheng, Swope Alley and San Benito St. | Angelica Navarro and Eric Skotnes | 11 ft wide x 20 ft high |
| C | Hollister Super #2, 211 3rd St. | Joey Rose | 11 ft wide x 20 ft high |
| D | East St. and Wentz Alley, east-facing | Gregory Shilling | 35 ft wide x 20 ft high |
| E | East St. and Wentz Alley, north-facing | Venazir | 35 ft wide x 20 ft high |
Walls D and E are the two biggest pieces in the set, and they share one corner. If you only have ten minutes, East Street and Wentz Alley gives you the most mural per step.
Two walls painted about Hollister
The project came together in Hollister, but the painters came from all over. Shilling lives in Sacramento, Rose in Oakland, and Skotnes is based in Los Angeles. Even so, two of the walls are about life here.
Wall C, Hollister Super. Rose likes to paint native animals. She named the big-eared bats of Pinnacles National Park as one example and said she wanted "to kind of point a finger towards endangered species." She also expected that some people might have mixed feelings about animals that aren't usually thought of as beautiful. If you've hiked Pinnacles or driven past the fields south of town, you'll recognize what she painted.
Wall D, East Street and Wentz Alley. Shilling told BenitoLink his style draws on "cartooning, cubism, impressionism," and that he set out to paint "expressive faces on the wall that are interacting with one another during the Hollister Farmers Market." He named Robert Crumb, Bill Watterson and the Hellboy comics as big influences. He also said he especially hopes teenagers feel inspired, because "people in small towns are often good at drawing," and "it can lead to a career."
The timing works in this mural's favor. The Hollister Downtown Association's Certified Farmers' Market ran Wednesdays on San Benito Street from April 15 through October 21, 2026. With that season wrapped, through the winter the Wednesday crowd lives on a wall a block off San Benito.
Three walls built on the artists' own roots
The other three murals draw more on where their artists come from. The Arts Council guide introduces each one.
- Wall A. MJ Lindo's family left Nicaragua during its civil war and moved to Toronto, where the city's subway murals set her on a lifelong path in art. Joshua Lawyer grew up in East Palo Alto in a strong Tongan culture and found his calling in the 1990s Bay Area street art scene. The two are married and paint together as Rough Edge Collective.
- Wall B. Angelica Navarro reworks the patterns, architectural forms and festive traditions of her Mexican heritage in a trompe-l'œil embroidery style that makes paint look like hand stitching. Eric Skotnes pairs wild style graffiti with figures drawn from classical sculpture.
- Wall E. Venazir is a Filipina muralist who works stories of her ancestral lineage into large public pieces, using a signature red thread to tie cultural memory to diasporic and multicultural communities. Her work has appeared in the Philippines, the United States and Europe.
On tour day, Jessica Kwang of Silicon Valley Creates stopped at the East Street and Wentz Alley corner. She told BenitoLink, "I especially really love the colors of the Philippines." Laine's advice for every wall was to look at the murals "through a child's eyes and wonder what they see in the colors and images." If you're walking with grandkids or visiting family, that's an easy game to play at each stop.
Add the older stops on the same blocks
The new walls join a public art collection that goes back decades. The Arts Council's Public Art & Placemaking page links two maps. One is a self-guided Hollister Public Art Walking Tour made with the City, covering downtown and Highway 25. The other is a separate map of the Visión Art Fest sites. The 2025 walking tour map lists these works near the new murals:
- Johnny's Birthplace of the American Biker, Ronald Rocha, Wentz Alley, 2007. It's in the same alley as Walls D and E.
- The Bounty, Arturo Rosette, Browns Alley, 2008.
- Maddux Mural, Carol Ann Huboi, 535 San Benito St., 2008.
- Remembering Our Veterans Past and Present, Ronald Rocha, 201 5th St., 2007. It's on the same street as Wall A.
- Showcase Theater Terrazzo, artist unknown, 701 San Benito St., circa 1932.
- Used Car Lot Mural, Phillip Ray Orabuena, Joel Esqueda and Adam Valentino, Hill St. and San Benito, 2016.
The same 2025 map also lists Ronald Rocha's 2007 mural El Sueño de la Humanidad, or The Dream of Humanity, at 211 3rd St. That's the address of the Hollister Super wall Rose painted this summer. Older pieces on the map were last listed in 2025, so treat them as stops to look for rather than sure things.
A good season to walk it
Downtown gets busier from here, and that gives you more reasons to make the loop. The Hollister Downtown Association's calendar lists a Veterans' Day Celebration on November 11, 2026, at 11 a.m. at the Veterans Memorial Building Plaza. Rocha's veterans mural on 5th Street is a short walk away.
Over Thanksgiving weekend, the association's Lights On Celebration page lists these events:
- Lights On Boutique, November 27 and 28. More than 30 artisan food, craft and goods vendors, plus coffee and cocoa. For kids there's face painting, balloons, crafts and letters to Santa.
- Dec-A-Tree, November 28. More than 30 trees decorated by local nonprofit groups stand on display all day in front of the Veterans' Memorial Building at 649 San Benito Street. Bourdet's Christmas Trees donates them, and once decorated they go to San Benito County families in need.
- 36th Annual Lights On Celebration parade, Saturday, November 28. It steps off at 5:30 p.m. on San Benito Street and is free. The association invites people to bring canned food or toys to donate.
You could see the murals in daylight that Saturday, walk past the Dec-A-Tree display, and find a spot on San Benito Street before the parade. The association's own advice is to "park, walk, shop, eat and enjoy" the decorated storefronts.
After more than 35 years on the Central Coast, I still find new things on these downtown blocks. If one of your walks starts you thinking about your own home and what it might be worth heading into the new year, Stephanie Hicks is glad to put together a no-pressure home valuation and talk it through with you and your family.
