New Capitola Village public art brings Monterey Bay wildlife to Monterey Avenue railing

Capitola will unveil a new public artwork along Monterey Avenue’s railing Saturday, welcoming visitors into the village with a sea of brightly colored jellyfish, otters, seahorses and other marine wildlife native to Monterey Bay, as painted by local artist Bruce Harman. 

Visitors can enjoy the piece, which spans the 625-foot railing, during this weekend’s Capitola Art & Wine Festival, when Monterey Avenue will be closed to vehicle traffic. 

Nikki Bryant, Capitola’s community services and recreation director, said the city’s Art & Cultural Commission began working on the railing project prior to the pandemic, but had to pause due to COVID-19 as well as the rising costs of materials. The commission brought the project back in 2024, when the city council approved it and Harman was selected as the artist.

“We are very excited to have this project complete and recognize it as an official installment within the city,” Bryant said.

The new project along Monterey Avenue as it descends into the village isn’t Harman’s first collaboration with the city of Capitola — he designed eight of the traffic-signal boxes lining 41st Avenue, also featuring realistic wildlife. 

“I’m a total nature lover. I’ve always been that way,” Harman said. “You have to be sort of devoted to your subject matter to paint it well.”

Bryant said the coastal town’s dedication to the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary made Harman’s marine-themed pitch a welcome addition to Capitola Village.

Harman said the brief on this job was “particularly unusual,” as the artwork needed to be sturdy enough to outlast the elements, but couldn’t be permanently attached to the railings. After testing different materials, he pitched artwork of Monterey Bay’s birds and marine wildlife on aluminum panels, which he specially cut with a laser welder. 

The constraints of the project allowed him to paint all 50 pieces of aluminum that comprise the full artwork in his studio.

“Painting outdoors on site is always challenging, noisy, and there’s lots of distractions,” Harman said. “That’s one of the reasons I love this way of working on these panels – I can make them here and then just go and install them.”

However, Harman faced the downsides to non-permanent public art when some of his pieces were stolen. “Some yahoo wrenched them off the railing,” he said.

The brackets have been rewelded using stainless steel and welding aluminum, deterring people, Harman hopes, from what he described as “porch pirate-type energy.”

Harman said this isn’t the first instance of stolen public art in Capitola. 

“There was a beautiful bronze dolphin sculpture that was installed down by the bandstand a few years ago. That was stolen off the ground and into somebody’s truck within a few months,” he said. “They replaced it with that walrus that’s there now.”

Another day, Harman was wrapping up the installation when someone drove by, grabbed his tool bag and sped off.

“There’s opportunistic thieves out there, and I wasn’t able to stop them, so they stole my tools right out from under my nose — in Capitola, which was shocking to me,” he said. 

He’s grateful for the city’s art and culture commission, which he said is actively working to “beautify the village.”

Harman moved to Capitola in 1981 after graduating from the Philadelphia College of Art with a bachelor of fine arts degree in printmaking, and he’s been creating public art of hyperrealistic wildlife across the county ever since. 

“I’m really inspired to try and get a dimensional look to the creatures, and make them look like they’re actually rounded and sitting there,” Harman said. “People tend to be very appreciative when they see that something is rendered carefully.”

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