Tiburon muralist turns Corte Madera underpass into art

Tiburon artist Rachel Hébert is seen Nov. 18 with her mural ‘The Sky Whales’ in the Wornum Drive Highway 101 underpass in Corte Madera. The painting features three whales and numerous egrets and pelicans spanning the underpass’s southern wall. (Francisco Martinez / The Ark)

For Rachel Hébert, raising kids in Marin meant being a frequent shopper at the Trader Joe’s in Greenbrae. Getting there meant driving through the Wornum Drive underpass at Highway 101. Each trip, she’d eye the massive gray wall.

“I just had this idea that that big, blank gray wall should be something else,” she said.

So the Tiburon resident, a professional muralist and artist, took matters into her own hands and last month completed a 100-foot-long, 11-foot-tall mural spanning the southern length of the underpass.

“The Sky Whales” features three whales painted in light blues and pinks swimming, or flying, through a pink sky with a full moon alongside pelicans and egrets.

The mural took about a month to paint, but it followed a three-year process that involved getting approvals from Caltrans, which owns the wall that is also load-bearing for the highway that travels over it.

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