Murals being made, part 77: TUCSON is back

There's been a mural on the south side of the building on Stone, just north of Speedway, for at least 18 years… maybe longer. The wall in the photo above was painted in 2023; there's lots more about it farther along in this post. Thanks to Kevin Blow — from England, UK — for the photo.

The years 2006-2022

The wall first appeared on this blog in Randy Garsee's August 8, 2006 post How to Ruin a Mural:

Randy wanted to promote Tucson murals to visitors as well as Tucsonans. He wrote that a dirty, vacant lot in front of a mural was a bad idea.

By 2010, Rock “Cyfi” Martinez had painted a mural on the wall… still with a vacant lot in front. See New mural, same lot. (Cyfi was also leading an urban art festival called WintaFresh just north on Stone. Our first post about it was Winter Fresh in July (?!) on July 6, 2011.)

On January 1, 2015, the blog showed a new mural that spelled T-U-C-S-O-N in big letters:

The post with that photo, TUCSON, has close-ups of the original letters and the artist who painted each one.

By May, 2019 — more than ten years after Randy's complaint — there was a Popeye's restaurant directly in front of the mural that blocked the view from Speedway! (Google Maps Street View shows the restaurant went up between June 2018 and May 2019.)

By February 15, 2022, the mural had faded. The post TUCSON is fading… shows the sad scene.

Ready to restart: April 2023

A bit more than a year later, a new mural was coming. This Google Maps Street View shows the empty wall in April 2023, ready to be painted:

Jerry's photos on May 23, 2024

From the west end (near Stone)

From the east end (away from Stone)

T by Kati Astraeir

U by Donovan White

C by Coda One

S by Ruben Urrea Moreno

O by Salvador Duran

N by Johanna Martinez

After May 23, artists kept painting. As you can see above, some artists had farther to go than others.

Artists' progress photos

Thanks to artist Ruben Urrea Moreno and Johanna Martinez for the 140 (!) photos and videos they shared with me. I picked 22 of them. There are three videos; the rest are photos. They aren't exactly chronological; I put them in an order that felt good to me. Thanks, both of you!

Finished: December 16, 2023

The next time I stopped by was mid-December. The mural was done. (At the top of this post is a photo of the whole mural by Kevin Blow. I'm not sure when he took it.) My photos are below: first from the right (east) end, then letter-by-letter from the left end. I've also included some close-ups; they're always underneath the photo they're taken from. Again, the artists were: T=Kati Astraeir, U=Donovan White, C=Coda One, S=Ruben Urrea Moreno, O=Salvador Duran, and N=Johanna Martinez.

New on Toole in 2013 (and Happy 2014!)

I was off my bike, and very busy, for the last half of last year. That meant missing the vibrant art scene along Toole Avenue downtown. (If you don't know Toole, click the "Location" link at the end of this post.) On Christmas Day, I got on my bike for a ride up Toole — from Hotel Congress... past Mat Bevel's butterfly sculpture at the corner of 6th Avenue... slowly past the ever-changing art-covered building at 191-197 Toole... Blocks, the skateboard and accessory shop with a mural on the side... to Solar Culture, near Stone Avenue.

Here are the photos, in order, with captions before each group. (If you want the exact location of anything, just drive or ride along Toole from southeast to northwest. Or, if you're technically-inclined the photos are geotagged... you can download a photo and get the location from a geotagging program. Or, ask me!)

First, the east side of the Rialto Theatre. Joe Pagac had painted a mural there that looked permanent to me. (Here's my March 7th, 2013 post showing the mural being made.) But now Joe is back to painting. The right-hand half of that previous mural was replaced by Joe's old style: promoting Rialto events. The new mural was co-painted by Noah Garcia:

At the northern corner of 6th and Toole, this mural at the left has been finished. It went without a caption for months. This caption, el pueblo unido no será vencido, means — according to a few online translators, at least — “The people united will not be defeated.” (My rough spanish made me think of “the town” instead of “the people.”. Comments, anyone?) Anyway, here's the photo — and the next few photos I snapped:

Along the street north of Skrappys (at 191 E. Toole) — next to the parking lot — have been a couple of sets of mural panels. The panels change from time to time. Here's the southern one, overall, then close-ups of the panels in it:

The next set is missing a panel. From left (northwest) to right (southeast):

On the side of Blocks at 7th & Toole, the latest mural (you can see earlier ones by searching this blog for BLX)... I think it may be by Rock “CyFi” Martinez:

Last, near Stone, where the community-oriented gallery Solar Culture sits, with its amazing rotating sculpture out front...

Give it a spin!



You can also see it, larger, in a separate page, by clicking here: Kati Astraeir shows sculpture near Solar Culture Gallery Tucson.

Update (December 22, 2014): I didn't show the new mural next to the spinning sculpture. And I don't remember if the dragonfly near the roof had been added by then. Mark Fleming took a photo on September 1.