A new website has launched documenting the public art murals in Santa Cruz County. SantaCruzMurals.com has documented 100 murals so far and is on track to add many, many more. The website consists of individual pages for each mural and includes the mural name, the artist who created it, location, and links to the artist’s webpage and Instagram accounts. Visitors to the site can view all 100 murals on the master Mural List page, explore photos of all the murals on the Gallery page and even plan out a “Mural Tour” using the Murals Map page.
Greg Rose is the person behind this new project and he feels the number of murals in the county is exploding exponentially right now. He felt it was time to create a single portal where people could come to learn more about the murals, the artists who created them, and most importantly, have a map so people could go find the murals and view them in person.
Greg explains, “Murals are created at a grand scale and can best be appreciated, by standing in front of them and taking it all in”. He goes on to say how he added a map to the site with the hope of allowing visitors (and locals) to Santa Cruz the ability to go mural hunting. Rose’s vision is to keep adding murals and eventually help to enable the murals of Santa Cruz County to become a tourist draw in themselves.
The inspiration of this project came after Greg moved away from the Santa Cruz area and spent some time in Venice Beach. While in Venice, he became aware of the multitude of murals in and around Venice Beach, and he wondered if there was a website he could reference to help him find their locations and go view them. Greg was not able to find a site like this online however Greg still thought a mural website was a viable idea which people would enjoy.
When Greg moved back to Santa Cruz in September of 2021, it coincided with the Sea Walls project spearheaded by the Made Fresh Crew. In addition to these 15 new murals of the Sea Walls project, Greg had noticed many new murals which had popped up in the year he had been away to Venice Beach. With completion of the Sea Walls project, It seemed that Santa Cruz had reached a tipping point, so Greg bought the url SantaCruzMurals.com and started looking for murals and taking his own photos of them.
After spending a few weeks driving around Santa Cruz County and documenting murals, he soon had over 60 and launched the page live at the end of October 2021. By January of 2022, there were 100 murals represented on the site. Greg’s goal is to eventually document all murals in Santa Cruz County and provide them as a resource for visitors to go explore the Santa Cruz area, find the murals, and experience them in person.
If you know of a mural which should be added to the site, please contact Greg through the site and let him know!
Great effort! Thanks.
I’m doing the same for Monterey county.
Check out @MuralsofMontereyCounty on Instagram.
Awesome way to document wonderful art in SC. Thanks!
I love this, thank you! would be great to have locations tagged so we can actually tour or look for these murals!
Great idea and it’s about time! Unfortunately, some of my murals have been painted over, but you can see my “ghosts” on my website , I’ve been active in Santa Cruz for almost 40 years.