[music] -I always keep a piece of paper in my pocket, and I jot down my ideas.

I was just really into art.

It's just something I had a passion for as a child.

Art makes people happy.

It's an escape, so I wanted to create something that's super color.. and grabs everybody's attention.

My name is Priscilla Martinez, and I'm the lead artist in this project.

Watsonville is heaven.

The town is only five miles in from the ocean, so we get these afternoon breezes.

Watsonville is an agriculturally based community on the central coast of California.

We're located in the southern part of Santa Cruz County.

Community, agriculture, nature, the wetlands.

I've lived here my whole life.

We have a diverse population, including native peoples who've been here since time immemorial, as well as many waves of immigrants, especially folks who came here to work in agriculture.

The Ohlone Amah Mutsun are the local tribal band who have been on the land for centuries before any Europeans or Mexicans got here.

California was Mexico before it was California, so Mexicans and the natives were here living together.

They are all still here.

Watsonville Wetlands Watch is a local nonprofit organization.

We restore wetlands, plant trees, and develop young environmental leaders in our community of the Pajaro Valley.

Watsonville has an incredible pathway and system of wetlands that are federally protected.

This is one of the few remaining coastal freshwater wetlands in .. We partnered with Community Arts and Empowerment to do broad outreach to the artist community in our region.

Brooke and I collaborated so that we could be the fabricators of the mosaics, whatever design was chosen.

Community Arts and Empowerment is a non-profit organization.

We were established in 2019.

Our mission is to create public art for, by, and with the community that both represents and empowers them.

The empowerment part is that we're teaching youth job skills not just for the arts industry, but tiling can get you a union job.

Empowerment for us is how we represent the community, and we want the community to see themselves in the public art that we create.

This project has two components.

We have a 30-by-10-foot wall mosaic mural that will welcome community members and other visitors to the new nature center, as well as a series of nine mosaic medallions.

We had 27 artists submit works that they had already done.

Then a committee got together, looked at those 27 submissions, chose three artists.

All three submissions were great, it was a super hard choice, but we let the community vote.

It was Priscilla, hands down.

I was shocked, but I was like, "Okay, I can do this."

People know who Priscilla is.

They love her.

She's such a wonderful, warm person.

We were delighted to work with Priscilla.

She's a Watsonville-born and raised artist.

Before I created the design, there was already community input on what people wanted to see in this mural.

It's for the community to feel proud of what they see here in town.

Some of the designs that were submitted were.. between colors that they won't read from a distance.

Priscilla's is going to shine.

There's so many colors.

The community wanted to see the past, present, and the future represented in this [?].

There's so much input going back to the history, the way they hunted, gathered crops, and the certain tools that they used.

The basket weaving had to be the specific design.

I had to do my research, it's history.

It's showcasing the plant and animal diversity of this valley, as well as all of the different peoples who have lived here in the past and the present.

Theologian Amah Mutsun, they're the smallest minority in our community right now, but this was their land first.

For the rest of us to acknowledge and see them, it's invaluable.

That representation is a form of empowerment.

They have always been here in this community, and they continue to do important work to restore and conserve the environment.

This is such a community-focused project.

I really hope they appreciate all the work that everybody participated in creating this room.

It's an invitation for people of all ages to be a part of local environmental conservation.

This is a chance for Priscilla's work to live on.

For the kids who are working on it right now, they get to show their grandparents, "I did this."

50 years from now, they get to show their grandkids, "I did this."

Everybody who puts their hand on it, it's theirs.

They get to own it.

Representation, ownership, pride, and community.

Those are just the best.

For me, I'm going to feel proud.

Yes.

I'm going to feel proud.

[music]