A+E

The Eureka Street Art Festival is back Aug. 7-14 for round four of beautifying the city with large, colorful murals and other vibrant art.

The annual event, whose mission is "to create intentional, accessible art that enlivens public spaces" as well as revitalize parts of the city, focuses on a different areas each year. Its inaugural year drew artists to Old Town, particularly to Opera Alley, where artist Blake Regan created a stunning mural depicting Billie Holiday that fittingly graces the outside of the SpeakEasy bar.

Last year during the pandemic, the festival invited a masked, socially distant public to Henderson Center to watch the artists work. For 2021, the festival is focusing on the U.S. Highway 101 corridor through town, setting its sights on some pretty impressive slabs of real estate — most notably the Humboldt County Courthouse, with its massive blank canvas on the south-facing wall. Other 2021 projects include a giant map of Eureka painted on the corner of Fifth and E streets and a piece coordinated by HAPI (Humboldt Asian and Pacific Islanders) in honor of Eureka's historic China Town.

For more on this year's event, including how to contribute to the GoFundMe helping cover costs, read the press release below.

And check out scenes from past Eureka Street Art Festivals here and here.

Eureka, CA – The fourth annual Eureka Street Art Festival will be spreading color throughout Downtown Eureka from August 7 - 14th, 2021. This year, we are focusing on the 101 corridor, and will be painting a number of wayfinding and welcoming murals. We currently have 8 murals in the works being painted by 9 artists, almost all of them locals.

This year we are working on bringing fewer, larger murals to Eureka: over 8,500 square feet of public art! This includes the massive mural being painted on the County Courthouse on I Street by Blake Reagan and Lucas Thornton; a big map of Eureka being painted on the corner of E and 5th Streets by Jenna Catsos (of Pen+Pine); a mural featuring a local endangered specie sponsored by the Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC); a piece being coordinated by HAPI (Humboldt Asian and Pacific Islanders) in honor of Eureka's historic China Town; and a repainting of a current piece of public art, by Kati Texas.

Big murals mean big money, and if you want to support this year’s pieces of public art, you can contribute to the Go Fund Me: gf.me/u/zqcq9f

Businesses and organizations interested in sponsoring the Festival can contact the organizers at [email protected].

Due to the unknown nature of the virus, we are not currently planning a Block Party, and are instead focusing our energy on bringing some HUGE murals to town.

The Eureka Street Art Festival’s mission is to create intentional, accessible art that enlivens public spaces, stimulates community revitalization, and attracts visitors to Eureka. Our long term aim is to recreate this event annually and continuously introduce new public art in Eureka. Excess funds raised by the Festival will go towards the maintenance of existing public art throughout the city. ESAF is a DreamMaker project of the Ink People Center for the Arts.