A giant fox mural now graces the Fox Theater, part of a Salinas City Center Improvement Association initiative.

For her largest mural to date, Lisa Haas took inspiration from the architectural style of Oldtown Salinas, and also from the building itself. 

One of her design concepts for the back wall of the Fox Theater on Main Street is an angular fox, and that's the concept that the Salinas City Center Improvement Association and the property owner selected. It took Haas and a team about two weeks to complete the project, after they started with 60-foot-tall lifts that turned out to be too short—she had to try again with 85-foot lifts. 

"Looking at a giant wall can seem intimidating," says Haas, a Monterey-based decorative painter and muralist. "But once you get into it, it’s not."

The project was commissioned by the Salinas City Center Improvement Association, which is funded with neighborhood property owner assessments. Mostly the association spends its $500,000/year budget on things like downtown cleanup and maintenance, landscaping and private security, as well as decorations. For murals as part of its District Identity and Streetscape Improvement program, the association has applied for grants. 

The Fox Theater mural was funded with about $35,000 from the Nancy Eccles and Homer M. Hayward Family Foundation; a mural unveiled last year, the Salinas Habitats mural on the wall of the building that is home to Patria restaurant, was funded with a grant from the California Arts Council. That mural was designed by Salinas artist Jose Ortiz. 

"We are actively soliciting grants from other organizations," says Greg Hamer of SCCIA.

The fox mural was completed several months ago; a ribbon-cutting ceremony and celebration take place on Thursday, March 20 at 5-6:30pm. (Access the wall from the Monterey Street side, near Midtown Lane.)