Marin Voice: ‘Peoples of the Canal’ mural transforming section of San Rafael neighborhood
October 17, 2024
By Rich Storek
PUBLISHED: October 15, 2024 at 11:30 a.m. Marin Independent Journal
I invite everyone to take an early October morning walk in San Rafael’s Canal neighborhood. It’s a unique place unknown to most in Marin.
This is the home for many members of the county’s essential workforce. Largely invisible, they are historically underserved, disadvantaged and struggling. They face the pressures of crowding, unemployment and displacement.
There are moms with strollers and kids on the way to school. Ranks of school buses stand by, filling and departing. Corner street vendors offer juices and breakfasts. Pickups loaded with gardening tools leave behind precious parking spaces. Unemployed men walk a mile to a curbside in hopes of work.
The social heart is the Boro Community Center, the library and Pickleweed Park. That’s where two immigrant artists are working. They are creating San Rafael’s first major art on a public building – a mural called “Peoples of the Canal.” It depicts the area’s earliest humans, who came and settled here thousands of years ago. It extends to today, showing the current occupants, while looking to the Canal’s future.
Five years ago a nonprofit, The Canal Arts, was formed with the mission of transforming the environment with inspiring art. While designing and building improvements for Canal Alliance’s buildings I suggested a new use of large blank walls, a tempting canvas to any artist. Following examples of cities made more interesting, inspiring and livable by engaging public art, The Canal Arts set out to make a mark in the Canal. Now affiliated with 14 Marin community service, business, arts and education organizations, we have taken to the streets, identifying potential buildings, finding funds, selecting artists and creating works of art that inspire.
Our first street mural was “Bienvenidos al Canal,” the depiction of a young girl, safely arrived, educated, employed and engaged in her community for a lifetime, then as a respected elder abuela.
By next year there will be over a dozen murals and a two-mile, 20-exhibit interpretive history. “Peoples of the Canal” is a story of 20,000 years, created along the San Francisco Bay Trail. Much of it is in the words of the Coast Miwok. Funded in part by the Coastal Conservancy, the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria and others (some still to find).
Art is at the heart of a good life. As renowned artist Ai Weiwei said, “Art is not an end in itself, but a means of addressing humanity.” It is our earth’s only universal language, perhaps half a million years old, in a child’s handprint. Public art has the power to promote a sense of belonging, serving as an informal educator, revealing new ideas and perspectives.
It can also empower local artists and youth by providing opportunities for expression and building skills and creativity. Cities have been transformed by the works of creative artists. Maya Angelou eloquently stated, “You can’t use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have.”
The Canal Arts teaches visual art through its Saturday morning family art events and engages members of the community in its creation. Public art projects that involve community participation foster social connections, reduce isolation and provide a sense of collective purpose, particularly transformative in a disadvantaged, invisible community.
Through its Canal/Marin “art bridge” program, it is addressing the “invisibility” of the neighborhood by introducing interested Marin residents to the community through joint art events. The flowering of public art is also a proven economic engine. City leaders across the nation are seeking to revitalize and grow their cities into vibrant communities, and art is an important tool to accomplish that goal.
Keep walking through the neighborhood, north along Kerner Boulevard, or east on Canal Street, to the Community Center. Watch the creation of the culminating element of the two-mile “Peoples of the Canal” walk. Oscar Morales and Vladimir Cuevas, whose work was selected among 23 proposals, are painting through October with funding through grants from Marin County on the first major mural art for a public building in San Rafael. It is full of color and a source of inspiration, pride and identity.
Rich Storek, of Greenbrae, is founder and director of The Canal Arts nonprofit. Learn more at thecanalarts.org.
