Downtown Hollister's New Murals Went Up Right Next to the Old Ones

The San Benito County Arts Council's printed Hollister Public Art Walking Tour lists 27 works, from the circa-1932 terrazzo at the Showcase Theater to Phillip Ray Orabuena's 2024 "Un Trozo de Aztlán" at First and San Benito. Between Aug. 25 and Sept. 7 of this year, five more walls were painted downtown during the council's first Visión Art Fest. None of them is on that map.

Two of the new walls face Wentz Alley, the alley where Ronald Rocha painted "Johnny's Birthplace of the American Biker" in 2007. Another sits at 211 Third Street, the same address the 2025 map gives for Rocha's "El Sueño de la Humanidad." A walk through downtown now passes 2007 murals and 2026 murals within a few steps of each other, and no single printed handout puts them side by side.

The five walls missing from the printed map

The council posted a separate Visión Art Fest mural map for the new work. According to the council, the artists are California-based muralists and collectives chosen through a competitive statewide Call for Artists earlier this year. None of the five murals has a published title. The details below come from the council's map and from BenitoLink's Sept. 18 coverage.

The two sources disagree on a few details. The council's map puts the Office of Education wall at 437 Fifth Street, while BenitoLink gives 460 Fifth Street. The Sacramento painter's name appears as Shilling on the council's PDF, Shilling-Goins in an earlier council post, and Schilling in BenitoLink. This post uses BenitoLink's spelling. The council describes Martinez's wider practice as drawing on ancestral lineage, cultural memory, and a red-thread motif. It does not say whether the Wentz Alley wall uses those ideas.

Wentz Alley now has 2007 and 2026 on one corner

Wentz Alley shows the overlap most clearly. Rocha's 2007 biker mural is already there. A 2017 BenitoLink walking tour called it a classic that Marlon Brando fans will smile at. At East Street, two new walls now meet at the alley at right angles, with Schilling's facing east and Martinez's facing north.

Rocha's wall is about the history Hollister is known for outside the county. Schilling's is about a weekday afternoon a few blocks away. He told BenitoLink that his influences include Robert Crumb, Bill Watterson, and the Hellboy comics, and he described the wall this way:

"I'm trying to do this mural in my own style. But it's definitely inspired by cartooning, cubism, impressionism, and by creating expressive faces on the wall that are interacting with one another during the Hollister Farmers Market."

In the same piece, he said he hopes teenagers in particular feel inspired: "People in small towns are often good at drawing. It can lead to a career, and I like proving that." During the festival, the council invited the public to watch the painting in person, "especially during upcoming farmers markets." That means the market Schilling painted was running a few blocks away while he worked on it.

Two murals listed at one Third Street address

The 2025 walking tour lists Rocha's "El Sueño de la Humanidad," translated as "The Dream of Humanity," at 211 Third Street and dates it 2007. The Visión Art Fest map puts Joey Rose's new wall at Hollister Super #2, also 211 Third Street. No council material or local news coverage found during research says whether the two murals share a building, face each other, or whether the new one replaced the old one. If you want to know, walk the block and look.

Rose's subject matter is the most local of the five. He told BenitoLink that he likes painting native animals, including big-eared bats, which are native to Pinnacles National Park and endangered. He added a tiger salamander at the top and "a big bowl in the center to kind of symbolize the local agriculture here." He also said people might have mixed feelings about animals that aren't usually seen as beautiful. Close by, at Third and San Benito, is John Elliot's 2015 Farmers Market Box, one of the painted utility boxes on the older map. Agriculture now shows up in the art at this intersection on both a 2015 utility box and a 2026 wall.

Why all five landed within a few blocks

The council planned the clustering, and the budget shaped it. Arts Council executive director Jennifer Laine told BenitoLink that the council won a $25,000 Impact Project Grant from the California Arts Council. "We knew that amount would not be enough to pay the artists for the size and scale we had in mind," she said, so the council asked local sponsors Edward Jones Financial and Corbin Motorcycle Saddles to help cover higher artist fees.

Laine said the council kept all the artwork downtown so people could see the whole project in one day. Because downtown already held most of the older pieces, keeping the new walls within one walk also put them among works from 1932, 1991, 2007, and 2015.

A one-afternoon route, grouped by cross street

The stops below are grouped by the cross streets both maps use. The order is a suggestion, so start from wherever you park. Addresses and dates come from the 2025 walking tour PDF and the Visión Art Fest map.

1. Seventh and San Benito. Venecia Prudencio's Hollister Mural and the circa-1932 Showcase Theater terrazzo at 701 San Benito Street. The map dates the Prudencio mural to 2023, but BenitoLink reported it finished in July 2022.
2. Swope Alley at San Benito. The new Navarro and Skotnes wall at Cheung Sheng.
3. 649 San Benito Street. David and Carol Ann Huboi's 2003 Veterans Memorial Building Eagle.
4. Fifth Street. Rough Edge Collective's new wall at the County Office of Education, plus Rocha's 2007 "Remembering Our Veterans Past and Present" at 201 Fifth Street and David Gutierrez's 2015 Biker Box at Fifth and San Benito.
5. Fourth Street. Richard Deutsch's 1991 rock sculptures of the Gabilan and Diablo ranges at 481 Fourth Street, Joel Esqueda's La Bamba Box at Fourth and San Benito, and Arturo Rosette's 2015 Fremont Memorial Tunnel between Monterey and West.
6. Third Street. Joey Rose's wall and the listed Rocha mural at 211 Third Street, then Elliot's Farmers Market Box at the San Benito corner.
7. East Street at Wentz Alley. The Schilling and Martinez walls, with Rocha's 2007 biker mural in the alley behind them.

Seven stops is a lot of looking but not much distance. Laine's single-day goal is realistic on foot. The printed map has more works than this route covers, including the Western Box, The Bounty, and the Maddux Mural. The Totem Pole on Hill Street and the four 2019 benches in Dunne Park would make a good second outing.

The downtown calendar runs through the same blocks

The Hollister Downtown Association lists the Certified Farmers' Market on San Benito Street every Wednesday from 3 to 7 p.m. through Oct. 21. As of today, two markets are left, on Oct. 14 and Oct. 21. A Wednesday visit lets you see the market Schilling painted and the wall itself on the same afternoon, then end with the rest of the downtown circuit described in our late-summer Wednesday guide.

The next date on the calendar also lands on the route. The association lists a Veterans' Day celebration on Nov. 11 at 11 a.m. at the Veterans Memorial Building Plaza. That is next to the Huboi eagle at 649 San Benito Street. Rocha's veterans mural is a short walk away on Fifth Street, and Orabuena's veterans murals are at East and Seventh and at Third and Monterey.

After that comes the 36th annual Lights On Celebration. The parade starts at 5:30 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 28, on San Benito Street, with a "Nutcracker" theme. The association asks attendees to bring canned food or toys, collected at 350 Sixth St., Suite 102. The Lights On Boutique runs Nov. 27 and 28 with more than 30 artisan vendors. The parade follows San Benito Street, which runs past the Cheung Sheng wall and several of the 2015 utility boxes.

Whether you're thinking about what's on the walls around your block or what your own home on these streets is worth, I'm happy to walk it with you. Erica Trinchero knows downtown Hollister corner by corner. Book a Consultation, or start with a quick home valuation.