Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Back to the archive...

If you've been following this blog for a while, you've seen that some of the photos I post are recent; others are older. I try to keep a fresh “mix” with some new photos and some older shots. This is the oldest one I have, from ten months ago: September 3, 2012.

This is on the playground wall on the southeast corner of Tucson Chinese Christian Church, 307 East Helen.

Saturday, June 22, 2013

Murals being made, part 20: Jos at Tucson Mall

You'll catch busy Jos Villabrille painting murals all over town. This spring, I found Jos (and met him for the first time) as he painted the new Good Ole Tom's location at Broadway & Wilmot. A couple of weeks ago, I met him on River Road. Yesterday, I was walking into a southwestern entrance to Tucson Mall. (Click there for a Google Map showing the mall, with a green arrow at the spot where the first — geotagged — photo was taken.)

This “murals being made” series shows any mural I find around Tucson that's in the process of being painted. (If you want to see more of the series, type murals being made into the search box at the right side of any page.) Jos seems to be working all around Tucson! He wasn't at Tucson Mall when I walked by his murals yesterday. I snapped a couple of photos, anyway.

The mural on the map above — the one nearest the entrance — looked only part-finished yesterday (around noon Friday):


The mural facing the parking lot looked finished — to my eyes, at least:


Thanks, Tucson Mall (and Jos!) for more great Sonoran Desert murals.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Los Amigos Childcare and Activity Center

On August 25 of last year, I photographed these murals wrapping around Los Amigos Childcare & Activity Center, 1300 W. St Marys at Melrose. I started from the southwest corner to the northeast corner of the mural-covered building. Some of the shots are overall; others are close-ups.

The work is signed By Alexander Reyes.

(P.S. The larger versions you get when you click on a photo used to be 1024 pixels wide (or high). I've found that Blogger doesn't charge extra for sizes of 800 pixels or smaller. So, from now on, most of the big photos will be a bit smaller. But I'm always glad to send full-resolution photos of mine to anyone who needs them. All of my mural photos are public-domain... though other photographers may keep copyright; we'll need to ask their permission.)

Friday, June 14, 2013

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Más de Davis Bilingual School

Back on May 25, 2009, we posted a couple of photos of this art-covered school. Back then, at least, it was named Davis Bilingual Learning Center. I'm not sure of the latest taste in school names, so I'll just call it Davis Bilingual School. Around the grounds is a lot of art in (naturally enough) both Spanish and English. If you click there, you can see the two photos I posted in 2009. Here are some more from August 22, 2012.

Let's start with a better photo of the the bench I showed in the 2009 post. In the middle of the center of the seat, it's signed Made by Los Artistas de Davis 2004 and also says In Memory of Melissa Gomez.:


A mural in an arch at the northeast side of the school, with a sign saying Dr. Valenzuela 1981-2011, and a close-up of the plaque toward the top:



As always, you can click on a photo for a larger view.

(By the way, there are more mural-filled arches on the south side of the school. You can see some of them in the first photo on the previous post I mentioned.)

Let's finish with a mosaic plaque at the southwest entrance to this art-filled place:

You can see this — and more — at 500 W. St. Marys (corner of Granada). The grounds may may be locked up this summer; I haven't checked. During the year, I'd recommend you check in at the school office before looking around. I got there early in the morning — after the grounds were open, but before the students did.

Update (December 1, 2014): There are even more murals here. See Art(y) school: Davis Bilingual.

Sunday, June 09, 2013

What's new at the library

The Eckstrom-Columbus Branch Library, at 22nd & Columbus, opened a week ago after its remodeling. It's a nice building, larger, with more computers and other modern features.

It also has a nice new tile mural next to its new west entrance:

I snapped the photo on June 7th.

Friday, June 07, 2013

More murals!

That title has two meanings, and both are thanks to tips from the Tucson Arts Brigade.

The Community Arts and Murals blog has stories about (among other things) mural projects and how they can help to transform a community. There are also lots of links to organizations, resources and people.

MuralFarm.org is an interactive database of thousands of murals in Philadelphia.

Would you like to spend an evening at La Cocina in beautiful Old Town Artisans, June 18th, helping TAB make murals while you help yourself to a buffet dinner? Lots of artists and musicians will be there too:


(As always, you can click for a larger view.)

Wednesday, June 05, 2013

Davis Community Garden

Just northeast of where St. Marys crosses I-10, at the corner of 5th & Anita, is this community garden:

I was there on August 22nd, during last year's monsoon. The garden also has art inside the fence:




Sunday, June 02, 2013

Hands across Borton (maybe a mural, part 47)

¡Hola, Tucson! — listeners from this morning's Fred and Jeff Show, and all the rest of you, too. This morning, I'll be a guest on the second half of the show (which runs from 11 to noon); soon after you should also be able to hear a podcast online at their website. In the meantime, here's a mural photo and — in case this is your first visit — some info about this blog. (You can read more in the page titled, appropriately enough, About this blog.)

This occasional “maybe a mural” series shows things that you might, or might not, call a “mural.” This one almost definitely isn't, but I thought it'd make a nice break from all of the flat art we've been posting here :)...

This was out front (the north side) of Elizabeth Borton Magnet School, on the southeast corner of 22nd & Euclid, August 17, 2012. Here's a close-up of some of those hands:

Unfortunately, the hands were gone when I rode by yesterday... it's just a box of soil now.

We've got a big backlog of murals to post, and this was at the top of the stack. To see some newer murals, scroll on down to some of the earlier posts.

You can also find murals by:
  • Scrolling down a bit until you see the Blog Archive in the right column. There you can find murals back to the day Randy Garsee started this blog (in July, 2006).
  • Typing a street name, artist name, or something else about the mural in the search box at the right side of any page on this blog.
  • Using the murals map, table of murals, or murals tour. They're all on the TucsonArt.info murals page.
Thanks for visiting! I hope you enjoy Tucson's nearly 1,000 murals (and counting) on these pages.

Saturday, June 01, 2013

South Tucson fire station update

Not long after I posted South Tucson fire station on May 19th, the artist who was leading the scouts left a comment saying that the mural wasn't quite finished when I photographed it:

Today I've updated that post and added new close-up photos. (Click on the post's name to see them.)