To honor its centennial, the city of San Carlos, in collaboration with Art Bias, created a 6,000-square-foot mural – found on the 700 block of Laurel Street – which features historical hallmarks of the city’s past.

Art Bias artists Deborah Shea, Shari Bryant, and Amber Smith have been working to transform the now permanently closed off road into a piece of art since painting began on July 7, 2025. However, this was not the first time the artists worked on their mural, as in the months prior, much time was spent researching, designing, and planning the mural.

“We did a lot of research on the history of the city, and then we met with the Parks, Recreation, and Culture Commission. We came up with our design and the imagery after a lot of work and effort,” Shea said.

The Parks, Recreation, and Culture Commission is just one of the many community organizations that helped make this mural possible. The Centennial Community Grant Program, whose purpose was to help fund celebrations for the centennial, was another.

“We ended up coming up with the concept of the Centennial Community Grant Program, which would allow organizations to come up with their own ideas for how to celebrate the centennial. We set aside around $240,000 to give out to local organizations with a cap of $30,000 per organization,” said Lauren Burd, the recreation supervisor for San Carlos.

The city created the program back in 2024, with the applications for the grant due in November of the same year. The first and second rounds of approvals were in April 2025, and according to Shea, Art Bias took part in this process as well.

“Once we had all the graphics and information set up, the commission unanimously passed it, and then it went to the city council, where it was also unanimously passed,” Shea said.

Once approved, the mural project received the maximum of $30,000 in grant money, according to the program website. However, this was only the beginning of the preparations for the mural. While the artists were planning the graphics, the city was working behind the scenes with one of its more unseen but crucial departments, the Department of Public Works.

“Public Works was so instrumental in getting this project done. There are no longer any traffic lines on the block, and that’s because they sent in a team to shave them off and flatten out the street,” Burd said.

According to Bryant, shaving the road was more than just flattening out the street. Thanks to the department, it not only allowed the artists to apply the paint more seamlessly but also deemphasized the road’s texture within the mural.

“This was just a regular road before. It had lines down the middle and things saying ‘No U-turn.’ Before we actually started painting, we asked the city to grind all that out. It actually did change the texture of the road in some places,” Bryant said.

Painting began on July 7, 2025, with primer going on first to make the colors pop. The artists later used the Meta Quest 3, a virtual reality headset, to ensure the proportions and locations of the graphics were exact to the original drawings.

“We did this triangle background as a grid structure to help us with the placement of all the imagery. And then we used the Meta Quest 3 to actually put the graphics down. We used the headset to do the outlines and some of the details to get the scale and perspective correct, and to do all the paintings,” Bryant said.

The Meta Quest 3 was an essential tool for the artists, as this was their first street mural of any kind. Not only did they have to navigate through the proportions of the imagery, but the artists also had to figure out other elements, such as what paint to use.

“We have never painted anything on the street. So, coming up with and figuring out what paint to use was probably one of the most difficult obstacles that we came to. When we first approached it, we were going to use exterior paint, but then the Palo Alto Art Commission was like, ‘Whoa, wait, that’s a slip hazard,’” Smith said.

The team ended up choosing a Behr porch and patio paint with an anti-slip additive for its vibrancy and beauty, which is an attribute found within the rest of the artwork.

Ultimately, the San Carlos Centennial Mural is a tribute to the city, containing historic elements from its past, such as the Circle Star Theater, a historic firetruck, and a timeline that records the city’s population throughout the years. For one San Carlos resident, Julie Becker, seeing the mural timeline brought her back to when she first moved to the city in 1982.

“It’s making me cry. I think it’s absolutely stunning, and they have really represented so many of the businesses down here, like the Saddle Shop and the train station,” Becker said. “All of it incorporates what I’ve experienced, and when they give the population during a specific time, I love that because I was here when it was about 24,000.”

This story was originally published on Scot Scoop News on September 15, 2025.