San Rafael's New Downtown Art Sits on Its Streets, and Two Pieces Haven't Settled Yet

There is a sculpture outside City Hall that's more than 18 feet tall, about 9 feet wide and roughly 2,000 pounds of mirror-polished stainless steel. If you walk past it on Fifth Avenue, you'll see yourself in it. It's called "Talking Heads," and it's the only one of downtown's five new artworks that won't stay. The City describes it as on display "for only one year."

A few blocks away, a 16-foot steel figure called "Touch the Sky" is standing at its temporary spot outside the San Rafael Community Center on B Street. Its permanent home is a median at the Second and Fourth Street intersection, and that intersection hasn't been rebuilt yet.

All five pieces went onto City-owned infrastructure: a parking garage, a retaining wall, a plaza fountain, the front of City Hall and a traffic median. So the collection moves when the streets do, and you can see it change over the next year.

How five pieces ended up on garages and medians

The program is paid for with a $250,000 grant from the California Arts Council and was carried out by Local Edition Creative, a Bay Area arts consulting firm. The City picked the sites before it picked the art. A June 2025 agreement listed specific locations, including a project that was simply called the "2nd & 4th Street Project Lane Divider."

Artist proposals closed in July 2025, and a jury chose semifinalists in August. The public commented that October, and the City Council approved the final works in February 2026. The City reported more than 1,000 survey responses on the proposals. As the pieces were finished, the state-designated cultural district changed its name from the Downtown San Rafael Arts District to San Rafael Arts, according to the Downtown San Rafael Business Improvement District.

Since the sites came first, each piece reflects the place it's on. You can see that best on foot.

The route, from City Hall to the West End

This loop starts at City Hall and heads west through five stops. Past the last one is the intersection where "Touch the Sky" is supposed to end up.

Stop 1: The temporary one, first

Start at "Talking Heads," because it's the piece with a deadline. Lobykin was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, and lives in Silicon Valley. Along with his own sculpture, he restores landmark architecture and sculpture. The City describes the piece as a study of "void and substance," made of open forms that reflect the street and the people walking by. It was already up when the City announced it on Aug. 3, so its one-year run started late this summer.

Stop 2: A parking garage, turned into a landscape

Go to Third and C, where Valenzuela painted "Handle With Care" across two panels on the City garage. Each panel is roughly 50 by 30 feet. He's based in St. Helena, as the Marin Independent Journal reported while he was painting. The mural puts black-and-white hands, covered in handwritten marks, over an acrylic landscape. The artist describes it as a meditation on shared responsibility for the land and the community. A message about care fits a building most people only pass on their way to somewhere else.

Stop 3: The fountain on Fourth

From there, walk to the City Plaza Fountain and Court Plaza at 1000 Fourth St. Paz de la Calzada's "Where the Fountain Dreams" adds a mural and ceramic tile to the fountain. The City says the work explores water as flow, sustenance, transformation, renewal and reflection. It was the second of the five works installed. The tile went in during June, after the mural.

Stop 4: The sculpture still in its waiting spot

Head to the Community Center at 618 B St. "Touch the Sky" was unveiled there on May 6. Martin Taylor, who works out of Portola Valley, built it from stainless steel and patinated steel and finished it with gold paint. The shape is meant to suggest movement, light and upward reach. When the Council approved it in February, it measured about 16 feet tall, 9 feet wide and 14.5 feet long, and its stop at the Community Center was planned to last roughly six months. At last report in early September, it was still at B Street and set to move to Second and Fourth.

Stop 5: A wall along Second Street

Go west on Second Street to the retaining wall at G Street. Wyatt Hersey's "San Rafael Tapestry" covers about 210 feet of it. Hersey works in Santa Cruz but grew up in San Anselmo. The panels show coyotes, wildflowers, bicycles and Mount Tamalpais. The City chose the location partly because Second is one of San Rafael's busiest streets. That means most people will see the mural from a car, a piece at a time.

Why the last stop depends on a road project

Keep going west and you reach the Second and Fourth Street intersection. Right now the art program doesn't have anything there yet. According to the City's Oct. 16 snapshot, close to 20,000 vehicles a day go through this intersection, and its five skewed approaches confuse drivers, cyclists and people walking.

The City's redesign makes the following changes:

• Five signal approaches become three, and crosswalks get shorter
• New traffic signals, lighting, paving and a transit stop
• Accessibility upgrades for people walking or using mobility aids
• A finished protected bike lane from Shaver Street to West End Avenue

A $3 million federal grant covers most of the cost, and about $398,000 comes from the City's gas tax fund. On Oct. 19, the City Council was scheduled to take up a construction contract of about $2.3 million with Ghilotti Bros., Inc. City staff say they'll post updates on timing, detours and lane closures as the work moves forward. The intersection project page is where to look for those.

The two projects are linked. In early 2026, City staff estimated the intersection work would be far enough along to place "Touch the Sky" in fall 2026. Now that the construction contract has only just gone to the Council, the sculpture's move depends on how fast the rebuild goes. The art program chose this median before anyone poured it.

What changes over the coming year

Over the next year, the collection is set to change in two ways. "Talking Heads" leaves City Hall when its loan ends. "Touch the Sky" moves from B Street to the West End once there's a median for it. Then the permanent set of four will be "Where the Fountain Dreams," Hersey's mural, "Handle With Care" and "Touch the Sky," all part of the City's civic art collection. Right now, the "Talking Heads" loan is still running while "Touch the Sky" waits at B Street. As long as both last, you can see all five works on one walk.

To end your walk with the artists working today, the next 2nd Friday Art Walk is Friday, Nov. 13, from 5 to 8 p.m. It's free and spreads across downtown, with galleries, open studios, exhibitions and receptions. Art Works Downtown anchors the evening.

At Falla Associates, we keep track of how San Rafael's streets are changing, from new murals to the intersection rebuild on the West End, because those changes affect how buyers see a home's location. If you live near the Second and Fourth project or anywhere along this route and want to know what your home is worth today, ask us for a free home valuation and we'll go through the local data with you.