Hundreds of people packed Action Avenue in Napa's Rail Arts District last Saturday for the second annual Action Art Fest, a free five-hour celebration of public art that filled the corridor with puppet shows, mural painting and a wandering brass band performing atop portable toilets. Sock puppets, a giraffe-versus-horse mural showdown and free typewriter poetry gave the block party a distinctly homemade feel even as it drew a crowd that organizers hope keeps growing each year.
The event marks the festival's return after its 2025 debut, when it drew over 500 attendees to the same stretch of Action Avenue, according to the Napa Valley Register. This year's installment again unfolded within the Rail Arts District, known as RAD, a free two-mile outdoor art corridor that begins in Napa's Oxbow District and runs north along the Napa Valley Vine Trail, parallel to active Napa Valley Wine Train tracks.
Sandra Cruz Wilson, who manages Nimbus Arts' riverside studio in Napa, returned to oversee the festival's hands-on activities, according to the same report. Watching children craft sock puppets from a table of scrap materials, Wilson summed up the appeal simply: “Everybody loves puppets.” Nimbus Arts, the nonprofit behind the effort, also brought its Nim+BUS mobile art studio to the event, and Wilson said the organization was glad to be invited back and looked forward to collaborating with others while bringing art to Napa.
Murals, Music and a Rolling Procession
The festival's centerpiece competition pitted two muralists against each other on opposite sides of a shipping container supplied by Action Avenue Projects. Harry Greer painted horses on his panel while Toni Rizzo focused on giraffes, and festivalgoers voted on the winning design themselves. Elsewhere on the avenue, Napa County Poet Laureate Aisha Rivera set up her red typewriter for a second consecutive year, tapping out free poems for passersby on themes she said tend toward family, pets and romance.
The day's most theatrical moment came from the Porta Potty Band, which staged a procession of art and music down Action Avenue before launching into covers of “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes and “Immigrant Song” by Led Zeppelin. RAD members joined in wearing oversized animal heads created by artist Robert Ortbal, who also performed with the band. The set wrapped with a game of musical chairs among festivalgoers, capping the procession on a playful note.
A Mosaic Built From a Decade of Recovery
Also on display was the Napa Quake Mosaic, a 12-by-40-foot artwork spanning a donated Wine Train railcar that was unveiled at the inaugural Action Art Fest. Spearheaded by Napa artist Kristina Young, the mosaic was constructed over roughly a decade from broken and burned household objects left behind by the 2014 South Napa earthquake, according to Wine Business, which reported that Young gathered donated pieces from more than 2,000 local residents. The piece also incorporates items tied to the 2017 and 2020 wildfires, and Young said she was happy to see the festival showcase the finished display.
The 6.1 magnitude South Napa earthquake struck on August 24, 2014, causing widespread structural damage across the valley, as reported by Studio KLY, which notes it was the largest earthquake to hit the San Francisco Bay Area since 1989. The mosaic stands as one of several community-driven recovery projects that emerged from the disaster over the following decade, and its presence at the festival ties the block party's celebratory tone to a longer history of collective rebuilding.
A Growing Roster of Arts Partners
This year's fest again invited a range of local groups to take part, including the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Festival Napa Valley, Blue Oak School and Nimbus Arts. Di Rosa, a 217-acre art park in Napa's Carneros region holding over 1,600 Northern California artworks, listed its estate property for sale in January for $10.9 million while seeking land partnerships to preserve public access, according to The Art Newspaper — a financial backdrop that hangs over one of the region's larger arts institutions even as it continues showing up for community events like this one.
Chuck McMinn, president of RAD Napa, said the festival creates meaningful connections through art. RAD Napa, established in 2016, was envisioned as a free outdoor contemporary art museum according to the district's website, and the organization has said it plans to expand opportunities for the community to engage with artists, local businesses, and public spaces. More information on the district and its programming is available at radnapa.org.
The Rail Arts District's footprint has grown steadily since its founding, with murals like Joshua Murillo's “Los Braceros,” completed in 2023 to honor Mexican agricultural and railroad workers, joining the corridor's rotating collection of public art. Combined with youth programs and mobile studios like Nimbus Arts' Nim+BUS, the Action Art Fest functions as an annual showcase for a broader, year-round effort to keep art visible and accessible along Napa's rail corridor.
