New Two-Panel Mural Brings Care and Reflection to Downtown San Rafael

"Handle With Care" is now on view at the C Street Garage

The City of San Rafael and San Rafael Arts invite the community to experience "Handle With Care," a new diptych mural now on view on the C Street Garage in Downtown San Rafael.

Created by St. Helena-based artist Bryan Valenzuela, whose work often combines visual imagery with handwritten text and layered meanings, the new mural is a meditation on our shared responsibility to care for the life, land, and community around us.

Spanning two walls of the garage, the artwork features a daytime panel on the left and a mirrored nighttime panel on the right. Each panel measures approximately 50 by 30 feet, creating a large-scale visual experience that changes in tone, light, and feeling from one side to the other.

Community members, visitors, and downtown workers are encouraged to visit the C Street Garage and experience the artwork up close.

A Reflection on Care and Connection

The new mural's title, "Handle With Care," is both literal and symbolic, featuring an image of cupped hands holding a rose against a sweeping Bay Area landscape of coastal hills, rippling bay tides, and open sky. The hands suggest tenderness, attention, and responsibility, while the surrounding landscape reminds viewers of the natural world and community we are all asked to care for.

While the landscape is painted in full color with acrylic paint, the hand figures are rendered in black and white using a handwritten mark-making technique. Memories, metaphors, and poems are drawn directly into the hands, giving the mural a sense of texture, language, and human presence.

Part of San Rafael's Public Art Program

"Handle With Care" marks the fourth of five new public artworks coming to Downtown San Rafael this summer, preceded by "Touch the Sky," "Where the Fountain Dreams," and "San Rafael Tapestry." Four of the artworks will become part of the City's permanent civic art collection. A fifth, temporary sculpture will arrive outside City Hall in August for a one-year exhibition.

The 2025-2026 Downtown San Rafael Public Art Program is supported by a generous grant from the California Arts Council and implemented by Local Edition Creative, an award winning Bay Area arts consulting agency. The program will continue to bring murals, mosaics, and sculptures to prominent locations throughout downtown, celebrating San Rafael's creativity, cultural identity, and role as an arts destination in Marin County.

A Community-Centered Selection Process

The new artworks were selected through a community-centered public process. The City's call for artist proposals closed in July 2025. The following month, the Public Art Program Jury reviewed the submissions and selected semifinalists.

Community members were invited to provide feedback on the semifinalists during a public comment period in October 2025. After considering that feedback, the Public Art Program Jury and Public Art Review Board presented their recommendations to the San Rafael City Council, which approved the selected artworks in February 2026.

Public Art Program Locations

Five City-owned locations are receiving artwork through San Rafael's Public Art Program:

• Court Plaza and the City Plaza Fountain (location of "Where the Fountain Dreams")
• The Second and Fourth Street project lane divider (soon to be permanent location of "Touch the Sky")
• The Second Street retaining wall at G Street (location of "San Rafael Tapestry")
• C Street at the Third Street Garage (location of "Handle With Care")
• Outside San Rafael City Hall (location of temporary sculpture for 1-year exhibition)