Jackalope wrapped in lights

The Little Free Libraries I've seen are mostly in front of people's homes. They usually have designs that are friendly to the neighborhood… and over-the-top clever. This one, at the southwest corner of Kennedy & Rubio in the Barrio Viejo, fits that perfectly:

On the east side is Danny Martin's mural of a jackalope. (I think jackalopes were spotted not long ago in a wash near here.) The box is wrapped in holiday-type lights — with an extension cord connected to the home just south, where I'm guessing the homeowners built the box.

I hopped stopped by on July 13, 2024.

Danny Martin joins mural party along 6th Avenue

What's different about this Danny Martin mural? It's on the west and south walls of Sooters Auto Service.

Of course, any muralist can have fun and paint anything. But I think Danny had more fun with this mural than usual. Here's why:

• He hasn't made a lot of murals with color. This one has a bright red truck.
• The truck is really bright red for having a moon behind it and a night sky.
• I usually see javelina together — especially the youngsters. What are the little ones doing scattered all through the mural?
• You can't pull up to get gas on the front side of the pump because there's a saguaro in the way. And keep an eye our for the prickly pear while you're filling your tank (unless one of the saguaro near the gas pump works for the gas station and will do it for you).
• His murals often have two identical saguaros. In this mural, all three are the same.

Tucson has lots of great murals, but not too many this fun. (There's another fun mural across the street. Our post The Thinkers un-Tagged has photos.)

To see his other murals on this blog, click on Danny Martin at the bottom of this post. On July 13, 2024, I walked (carefully) into 6th Avenue to grab this photo.

Hidden on Contzen

This neighborhood, Barrio Anita, has several big mural installations in and around it: the east side of I-10, Anita Street Market, Oury Park, and Davis Bilingual School. To see them, you can use our mural map at map.tucsonmurals.org; try searching for Contzen. (I'll include a screenshot at the end of this post.) There's also a pocket park along Contzen Avenue, in front of the I-10 mural; details are in today's post Two tables next to giant murals on the Tucson's Pocket Parks blog.

There are several murals in front of homes. Here's one on the fence in front of a home along Contzen:

The artist's signature is in the middle of the left edge:

Below is a Google Map that has the mural marked with an X and a square at the pocket park a few blocks north on Contzen.

I took the photos on July 11, 2024.

Brighter versions of tired tagged murals

For at least 15 years, there's been a mural almost hidden on the south end of Armory Park Center, at the northwest corner of 13th Street & 5th Avenue. Here it is on Friday, May 29, 2009, in our post Giant plants (or tiny buildings):

We also showed the mural a few months ago in Tired tagged murals.

But we haven't shown the long side of the mural very well. I stopped by on July 13, 2024, to grab closeups. I've edited these photos to make the colors a bit brighter — less faded and more (I think) like the original mural. From left (west) to right (east), here they are:

The Living Mural transformed

The former Living Mural, on on 7th Street near 3rd Avenue, has evolved since it was first created in 2021. The idea in 2021 was to divide a wall into smaller spaces where different artists could paint their own mini-murals. There are lots of photos from May 2021 through September 2022 in the posts The Living Mural is evolving and Living Mural still alive in June. By September 2022, Pen “The Desert Pen” Macias had repainted the left half with a desert scene; see Desert Pen's mural is alive.

I came back on July 13, 2024 to take photos of Pen's finished mural. (It was actually finished months before.) Here they are: an overall view, three sections from left (north) to right (south), then a closeup of a sign she painted in the middle of the mural.

We showed another mural by Pen last time in Murals being made, part 81: Dandelion seeds!.

Murals around BICAS

What makes BICAS “more than just a bike shop is our Art program,” their art webpage says. Their new-ish location a bit southwest of Grant & Stone is like their old location, with art outside; we showed their Citizens Warehouse art on February 17, 2014 in Our 900th post: BICAS!.

This mural is on a storage container along the south side, next to Ventura Street:

The bicycle at the top middle has wings:

On the front (east) side of the building is another mural. The top was in shadow while I was there:

As I edited the photo of the whole mural, I noticed some lettering at the top left:

It says COMMERCIAL PRINTERS INC. I found a listing on PrimeBuyersReport.org that says their phone number was (520) 623-4775 and they were “business printers for business envelopes, business cards, letterhead printers”.

Here's a closeup of the bottom right:

Lucky Salway wrote about one or both of the murals on Facebook Messenger May 26, 2023. I can't find that message now, but I'm pretty sure it was the second mural above, on the front of the building.

There's a fun mailbox too. You can see it in the creatively-named blog entry Mailbox outside BICAS on the Tucson Mailbox Art blog.

Murals being made, part 81: Dandelion seeds!

The front of the former Macy's department store at Park Place Mall has been closed for years, covered over and vacant. It turned out to be the perfect place for a community mural. The Desert Pen — muralist Pen Macias — designed a mural with lots of room in the middle for contributions from Tucsonans.

Before we look at the mural being made from start to finish, here it is finished on September 24th:

All of the spots drifting from the dandelion are seeds painted onto pieces of wood by community members. Pen posted the video below on Instagram to explain. (In the blog preview, the video looks distorted to me: wider than it should be, so people look big. If you'd like to open the video in a new window, here's a link: https://www.instagram.com/reel/DAMnKUvSZ5l/.)

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Pen Macias (@thedesertpen)

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As the video shows, the dandelion seeds in the middle took a long time to make! Painting the mural itself was done in a week, with the seeds added near the end. September 14th, there was a blank wall with the design sketched. Here's what I saw late the next afternoon, September 15th:

The mural at the ceiling, in the arch, is one of a series through Park Place that Jos Villabrille painted ten years ago or more. The designs are spectacular… for instance, this mural has agave spilling out of the mural into the air below. You can see more murals in our March 2, 2015 entry, Our 1,000th post: Jos at Park Place mall.

Closeups with lines sketched for what will be coming soon:

This sign was in front of the mural:

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I came back on September 21 to see the finished mural. There's a photo of the whole mural at the top of this post. Here are closeups — first, the left and right ends:

Next, parts of the dandelion seeds. All the seeds have designs inside, and some have words:

The artist signed her mural in the top right corner:

Blacklidge Community Collective

Across 7th Avenue from BICAS (which we'll see next week) are murals on the west wall of the building, which is on the northeast side of 7th Avenue & Ventura Street:

I took the photos on July 11, 2024.

Tucson Arizona Boys' Chorus

The chorus building's new mural was dedicated May 2, 2024. I took these photos on July 10, 2024:

Here's BG Boyd's video, from TucsonAZMurals.com, of the mural being painted:



If you'd like to open the video in a new browser window or tab, click here: https://youtu.be/ZfLj8XaQgME?si=jdJrUjJS5gYiNslZ.

I Am You 360

I Am You 360 is a nonprofit working to create a tiny home community for vulnerable youth. When I visited on July 10, 2024, homes were being built in the (formerly) vacant lot just north of the building. You can see a bit of one at the left edge of the first photo. The headquarters, with the mural, is at the right:

ThisIsTucson.com has a long article with history and details: Help this Tucson nonprofit change lives one tiny home at a time. Desiree Cook, the Founder and CEO of I Am You 360, will be the featured speaker for breakfast on Saturday, Oct 5 at 9am at Catalina United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall… their web page https://www.catalinamethodist.org/news/catalina-breakfast-forum-oct-5-9am/ has info and RSVP. (I'm not a church member. I spotted that online.)

Desert popcorn

(Dessert popcorn, too: They have sweet flavors.) Uncle Bob's Popcorn has been in Tucson for 60 years.

The mural looks a bit surrealistic to me: A hummingbird as big as a javelina? I don't want that in my back yard. 😉

Last time, we saw another mural by Sarah Lewis, who signs with her Instagram address; her Linktree https://linktr.ee/everythingbeautiful.az has more links.

I stopped by (but somehow talked myself out of going in to buy ten pounds) on July 8, 2024.

Colorful mural in a surprising spot

I'm guessing that the homeowner of 2104 N. Chrysler Avenue commissioned Everything Beautiful to paint this mural on their wall along Seneca Street:

The artist's Linktree page, https://linktr.ee/everythingbeautiful.az, has her name Sarah Lewis and links to three social media accounts. Her Instagram has (of course) a lot of photos.

I got this nice surprise as I drove along Seneca Street, looking for the mural, on July 8, 2024.

Another walk around El Rio Neighborhood Center

This Center has classrooms, a public library, and other facilities. Both Mark Fleming (who's contributed a number of photos over the years) and I walked through the outside of the complex, and took photos, twice in the past 16 years: El Rio by Tineo on May 02, 2008 and El Rio revisited on January 23, 2012. You might want to look through those photos before you see the photos below — which include murals that have been renovated in the past five years.

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This is the northeast entrance, off of the parking lot, on July 11, 2024:

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If you walk in from the Speedway side, on the south, you'll see a curved bench and a mural:

At the top left corner, the signature says Mural by David Tineo / Restoration by @TENZ520 and Community 7/18/19 (I can't find @TENZ520 on Instagram, so I might have that wrong):

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The rest of the photos are a tour through murals along the inner walkway, roughly from the Speedway entrance walking north, not necessarily in order (since July, I've forgotten the order 😉):

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The last mural in this tour is along the east side, a Pima County Public Library branch:

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I took those photos outside on July 11, 2024.

Back on March 9, 2018, I found three murals inside a building. The mural at the library was different. The post also has a shot of the northwest entrance murals from a different angle: Even more art at El Rio on Speedway!