San Marcos High School’s new mural, a collaboration between students and local artist Michael Matheson, celebrates the community.  

Taking about two weeks to complete, this art piece spans the 16-by-185-foot wall of the upper basketball court on campus.

“The school houses a lot of different nationalities, and people’s interests and cultures and communities, so we tried really building that into it so it was really welcoming to the total student body,” Matheson said. 

“We kind of wanted to reactivate this space and make it a place where they can do like parties and pop-ups and kind of entrepreneurial-based activities… we just wanted to make beautiful art that represents the student body and was encouraging about their future,” Matheson continued.

With donations in hand, the Royal Pride Foundation came up with the idea to “take this really terrible looking space on campus and beautify it,” board member Peggy Reagan said.

In searching for an artist to work with, they came across Matheson, who has designed many signs and logos around town for spots like Cajé and Peabody Charter School.

And now he has designed a mural for San Marcos High School, at 4750 Hollister Ave., where he happens to be an alum. 

“We knew through our first conversation with him that he was going to be someone who would engage with the students and really make this a collaboration,” Reagan said.

Mural Club Royal Time

Twice a week, San Marcos students have “Royal Time,” a 45-minute period where they can take an elective or get extra help in a class. 

The Royal Pride Foundation decided that Royal Time was the perfect space to get students involved in the mural process. 

Over the course of three months, 20 students worked with Matheson to brainstorm fonts and colors. They landed on the phrase “The Future is Ours.”

Matheson said, “We would just talk about design elements. We did a Pinterest page together, we worked on the phrases together, the colors… We really wanted new colors for San Marcos. We really wanted to change the lion and make it feel more like something that’s a part of the community.”

Along with their work planning the initial design, Matheson also led the students in various art exercises like silk screening T-shirts and mixed media collages.

“We kind of talked about like the process of doing a mural and what you would do for different surfaces, so we kind of learned about Mike’s [Matheson’s] job and just like how we would be tackling the project,” Otis Carter, a student in the Mural Club class, said. 

“I think that it will be nice and refreshing to see something instead of just the gray wall that it was,” Carter shared. 

Community Partners

The basic funding for the mural came from a grant that the Royal Pride Foundation received from Deckers Brands. 

“You’re seeing a local company that’s really investing in their community,” Matheson said. “We should encourage more businesses locally to make it feel more like a hometown… and support things like this.” 

Four more businesses sponsored specific aspects of the mural project. Dunn Edwards supplied paint, Sun Coast Rentals and Milpas Rentals provided scissor lifts, and Prospero Sotelo (another San Marcos alum) from S&J Painting helped with power washing, priming, and top coating the wall at no cost.

“What’s interesting is that [Matheson] and [Sotelo] did not have a romantic high school experience; they had the kind of experience where they weren’t really part of it,” Julie Strand, president of the Royal Pride Foundation, said. “But they’re Royals in their heart regardless, and they want to make it so that other kids who had experiences like them can find something to be part of.”  

“Besides getting to paint it, getting to meet all these people and work together as a community — it’s really encouraging to know we have the support system that these schools really need in Santa Barbara,” Matheson said. 

When asked about plans for future work at San Marcos, Matheson told Noozhawk that this mural is only the beginning. 

He wants to put new signage in the boys football locker room, beautify the girls outdoor basketball court, and to spread the font used in the mural throughout the hallways of San Marcos, all in the hopes of creating a more positive space for students. 

“We just wanted to create a really positive, charged mural in a space that when people pass through it, it left them with a very encouraging word or phrase to improve their day,” Matheson said.  

“It’s really a heartwarming project to be a part of. Like, I wake up in the morning with a full, happy heart,” Strand said.