Watsonville Brillante is a 12,500-square-foot community-fabricated mosaic installed across multiple surfaces in downtown Watsonville — the largest community mosaic project in California history. Over several years, hundreds of Watsonville community members participated in its design and fabrication, with particular involvement from immigrant families, youth, and first-generation artists.
The project received Best in Show from both the Society of American Mosaic Artists (SAMA) and the Contemporary Mosaic Art (CMA2) international exhibitions. The City of Watsonville received the 2025 Helen Putnam Award for Excellence from the League of California Cities in recognition of the project.
Watsonville Brillante is located in downtown Watsonville, California, and covers 12,500 square feet on the three faces of the six-floor parking garage next to the Civic Plaza. The first tile was placed in September of 2019 and in spite of COVID and other delays along the way, the final installation took place 5 years later in September of 2024. Materials include ceramic tile and glass, and it was fabricated by over 100 members of the local community. The designs were created by 120 local artists, 105 of whom were high school students when they submitted their designs.
Kathleen understood that with so many designers from different cultural backgrounds and aesthetic training, the overall effect could be chaotic. She, therefore, planned to have the large vertical designs all be created by one artist. She wanted the images to be bold, black and white images that could provide a visual rest from the variety of patterns and colors planned for the horizontal sections. The obvious choice for these vertical images was Juan Fuentes, a 1969 graduate of Watsonville High School who had achieved his own acclaim through his four-and-a-half decades-long career in printmaking and his print studio “Pajaro Editions” in the Mission District of San Francisco. Juan’s images, “The Mayan Warrior (The Strawberry Picker), “en el Cielo” (The Apple PIcker), “Heranita”, and “In the Garden” (The Asian Flower Grower) each tell a story about the agricultural roots of Watsonville. Curious folks can read more about Juan Fuentes and his images for Watsonville Brillante.
To make the project a reality the nonprofit organization Community Arts and Empowerment (CA&E) was established and a board of directors has overseen the organization and its projects since the spring of 2019. The budget grew substantially From the original projection of $1.5 million to $2.2 million when a paid intern program was established. Watsonville Brilliante has been funded almost entirely through private donations. The City of Watsonville has leased the Muzzio Mosaic Arts Center to Community Arts and Empowerment for $1 a year; this donation on the part of the City is valued at $300,000 donation. However, the building that is now the Muzzio had sat largely unused for over 10 years before Community Arts and Empowerment occupied the space, because the City did not have funding for programming. In addition to the Monumental Mosaic the City of Watsonville is receiving, CA&E providing programming for youth at the Muzzio Mosaic Art Center through the work of CA&E. The value of youth programming at the Muzzio Mosaic Arts Center is estimated to be $200,000 a year between salaries, utilities, insurance, and programming costs. CA&E received one grant from the Arts Council of Santa Cruz for $2,000 representing less than 1% of the total budget.
Significant donations to the project have come in the form of business partnerships. Rinaldi Tile and Marble based out of Pajaro has donated all of the installation labor. Fireclay, a B-certified Corporation with a factory in Aromas, has provided 80% of the tiles and the remainder of the tiles have come from Daltile. All installation materials from the waterproofing membrane to thin-set grout and tile sealer are Laticrete products that have been 100% donated. The combined value of these in-kind donations is estimated to be $900,000. These Partnerships would not have been possible without the connections and generosity of Rick Rinaldi and his parents Yvonne and Gino Rinaldi Sr.
A business, even a nonprofit one requires cash to pay payroll, insurance, utilities, and other operational costs. CA&E was supported by seven Angel donors who each gave us $20,000 a year over 5 years. Additional smaller donations have come in over our 5-year period of operation and we are particularly grateful to those who give what they can in support of our dreams.