Jesus “Toro” Martinez grew up in Laredo in a working class family, the youngest of seven children. He owes much of his early interest in art to his older sister, Herlinda. When Martinez was a young boy, he would accompany Herlinda to her art classes with Amado Peña at Martin High School. Peña, who would emerge as a nationally recognized Latino artist in the late 1980s, taught art in Crystal City and Laredo schools in the early 1970s before moving to Austin and later Santa Fe in the decades that followed.