Thursday, January 27, 2011

These murals aren't trash

Murals can change ordinary public places into art... and that includes dumpsters. Here are two examples I spotted at the end of July. The first was at Martha Cooper library, 1377 N. Catalina Avenue...

...and the second, at 4215 E. Fairmount Street:


Update (April 29, 2015): I just ran across an article about the dumpster art in the Arizona Daily Star: Midtown area creates 'dumpster art' to beautify streets, deter graffitists effort to discourage graffiti taggers,

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Sunny scene at street's end

At the southern end of the central part of Tucson Boulevard (the part that runs between the Rillito and Aviation Highway) is this little tile mural:

It's tucked in a corner between the home at 1521 S. Tucson and the dead-end street. Behind the mural is the wall that separates Aviation Bikeway/Highway from the neighborhood.

Update (February 1, 2016): There's a bench under a tree just up the street… a nice spot to sit and relax. Click there to see it on the Tucson's Pocket Parks blog.

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Tucson murals by theme

We're almost at the 300th post on this murals blog, and Melo King's murals map has many more murals that I haven't had time (yet) to post on this blog. Her latest mural map lets you choose murals by theme:

tucsonart.info/murals/map_theme.html

We're still working on the mural maps, so that link may not work forever. The next one should, though:

tucsonart.info/murals/

Please send comments and suggestions to Melo at tucsonmuralmap@gmail.com

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Is this worth being in a gang?

Out on my bike today in South Tucson, I spotted this series of murals in the alley between 30th and 31st Streets, just east of 3rd Avenue. It's on the back (north) side of Capilla de Guadalupe. Here's a satellite view from Google Maps.

The photos run from east to west along the alley; the first photo shows the whole series, and the others show individual parts. The original murals have been partly trashed by taggers — including the part that gave me the title for this blog entry. The only date I found was '94, though the tombstones are all dated in the early 1990s.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

El Mezon del Cobre

This mural covers the north wall of El Mezon del Cobre restaurant, 2960 North First. I took the photo in July.

Thursday, January 06, 2011

Flash mural?

These look to me like paper or cloth pasted onto the railroad crossing over Stone Avenue, just north of downtown. I'd guess that Graffiti Protective Coatings or some other group will be out here to remove it soon. Or could it be for real?

I snapped the photo yesterday afternoon.

Sunday, January 02, 2011

Half Hidden on Country Club

Some streets in Tucson have more murals than others. (Some streets — in downtown and in the city of South Tucson, for instance — have half a dozen murals on a block.)

One of the "other" streets is Country Club. So far I've only spotted four murals along its entire central section — from near the Rillito on the north to the railroad tracks in the south. I've posted two of those so far. Here's the third. It's actually a pair of murals, partly hidden on two sides of the Tucson Alliance for Autism building, 1002 North Country Club (the corner of East 2nd Street):