Howdy from Tuxon

Joe Pagac wrote online on July 3rd that he got help from Arielle Pagac-Alelunas, Lena Alelunas, and Brett Wolgemuth to finish this mural in time for the opening of The Tuxon hotel. I snapped the photo on July 7th.

Bookstore Southwest

Almost ten years ago, I showed a photo of the mural on Bookstore Southwest Adult Shop as part of the entry Five horses on Speedway. The wraparound murals deserve a closer look:

I stopped by on May 10th.

Butterfly Lady

By Sawaki and Wagon Burner Arts.  Photographed on Aug. 30, 2020.

The first photo below had to be taken at an angle due to the tight space and a chain-link fence.  The second photo is the result of perspective correction and cropping.

Click on either photo for larger and sharper images.

197 East Toole all repainted (Murals being made, part 56)

The mural-covered building at the corner of Toole Avenue, 6th Avenue, and Alameda keeps changing and changing. That's especially true of the east side wall along 6th. (Here's a list of murals on that wall.)

Usually one or two murals are replaced at a time. This past summer, though, every mural was repainted or finished. (The muralists kept the image of Che Guevara from one of the murals and painted a new background around it.) Let's start with the latest murals (I think!) before the mass repainting, from left (January 2020) to right (December 2018):

I never saw the third mural in the first photo, of migrants, finished.

At the end of July, I noticed the murals being repainted. I came back on August 3rd:

Here's the fourth of eight murals at sunrise on August 4th:

Next, a screen grab from the video Desert Delirium - The Surreal Murals of Tucson, AZ, by Rob Allen. He recorded it on August 9th. The mural at the far end is being finished:

On August 15, the blue square had a sort of wildcat (a bit different from the U of A's Wildcat):

September 13th, I came back. The scaffolding was gone. There was a white square near the right end… maybe another mural is coming? Unfortunately, a car was parked in front. But I worked around it and took photos of everything except the white square:

The Black Lives Matter mural below is by Nolan Patterson (@basik__art on Instagram):

This page from Corazones Unidos at Raices Taller 222 Gallery & Workshop will probably disappear when the exhibition ends: https://www.raicestaller222.com/copy-of-javier-valenzuela. So use the artist names:

Studio ONE Painted during the time of coronavirus, this mural was completed by our good friends, compadres, and comadres down the street at 197 E Toole Ave in Tucson: Studio ONE – A Space for Art and Activism. Participating Artists Paco Velez Anzueto, David Contreras, Chris Miller, Ses One, Crystal Triste, and assisted by Akasia Oberly and Vier Oner

"Safe Shift"

Painted by Sal Sawaki, Sketch 71/Rickey A Bush & James.  Sponsored by Wagon Burner Arts at 2801 E. Grant Rd. and viewed from N. Treat Ave.

Click on any photo for a slideshow of larger and sharper images.

Photographed on Aug. 6, 2020.

Update from Jerry Peek (February 4, 2024): Today I was going through some photos I'd taken for this blog to see if I'd missed any murals. I found photos of the day Sketch (Rickey Bush) took me to see this mural, May 29, 2023. The mural is on the west side of the Greater Tucson Fire Foundation's shop called Safe Shift Estate Resale, which helps to support GTFF's endowment. Among other things on the front door were “Taking care of those who take care of us”. The website TucsonFireFoundation.org has two sentences I'll repeat here: “In 2019, the number of firefighters who took their own life was greater than the number killed fighting fires. We’re here to provide our firefighters and their families with the physical and mental health support they need.” The GTFF's endowment is explained at https://www.tucsonfirefoundation.org/endowment/.

Two closeups I took of the mural:

The woman in the second closeup is Patty Vallance. A quick web search showed that she volunteered for a number of causes. Among other things, she helped to create the Fire Foundation. She died suddenly at age 62 on June 3, 2020 — two months before David Aber took the first three photos here. The Arizona Daily Star article Patty Vallance, businesswoman, author, was key supporter of Tucson Fire Foundation tells more.

Three landscapes in one mural

A high plains landscape, a fantastic dragon, and a coastline, all in this mural. I found it on May 29th.

KAVA

Found at 'The Kava Bar' and photographed on Aug. 30, 2020.   Kava is a root from the South Pacific that is ground and mixed with water. It makes a muscle-relaxing, antidepressant drink.  Its taste has been compared to a "bitter mud puddle".

Artist Not Known

Click for a larger and sharper image.

Magnificent entrance and quirky mailbox

Yesterday on the Tucson Mailbox Art blog, we showed a mailbox with what looks to me like a mouse on top. Nearby it is the gorgeous entrance to the home:

I was there on May 29th.

Around the corner at MSA Annex

Last time we saw Black Lives Matter murals on the west side of the Mercado San Agustin Annex. Here's a mural from the east end of the north side:

The artist's name is Yu Yu Shiratori. She titled the mural “Stillness.” (Her Instagram is @yuyu_shiratori. You don't need an account to click and scroll through.) For further info from the Southern Arizona Japanese Cultural Coalition, read Stillness.

I was there on July 7th.

Goodbye Tucson Arts Brigade, TAB murals restored

A year or so ago, I saw a brief message from Executive Director Michael B. Schwartz of the Tucson Arts Brigade. Apparently TAB was shutting down, though I wasn't quite sure. I tried to find news online for a while but found nothing definite. Yesterday, David Aber found this post from Michael dated August 22, 2020:

What ever hapened to Tucson Arts Brigade?

I'm sorry to see TAB go. They did a lot of good.

In January 2016, Michael demanded that I remove all of the photos of TAB murals from this blog. (He later disputed that.) Although I believe he can't control photos of public art that aren't taken for profit (see yesterday's blog entry, Photographing public art: is it allowed?, for some perspective), I did what he asked. Now I've restored the photos. If you'd like to revisit those blog entries, here they are. (After you visit each page, you can click your "back" button to return here.)

• September 14, 2006: My First E-mailed Mural Pic!!!
• May 22, 2009: Ironic, isn't it?
• June 19, 2011: Barrio Centro mural unveiling
• March 14, 2012: 29th Street overpass and mural project
• September 16, 2012: TAB grand opening, overpass update
• September 29, 2012: Murals being made, part 9: TAB on Tucson Blvd.
• February 02, 2015: A treat on Treat… and more to come
• February 16, 2015: Murals being made, part 26: Jeane Cohen at CCA
• February 19, 2015: More from Central City Assembly
• August 03, 2015: Walkway treat: Treat Walkway

While I'm at it, here are blog entries about TAB that came later. The photos were never removed from these entries:

• Bronx Wash (Although the credits panel doesn't mention TAB, Michael Schwartz was listed as lead artist… and this is a group project): March 14, 2011, December 19, 2016, December 21, 2016, December 23, 2016, March 16, 2018, April 24, 2020
• February 02, 2015: A treat on Treat… and more to come
• August 03, 2015: Walkway treat: Treat Walkway
• Summer 2016: (Downtown) Murals being made, parts… 31: Niki Glen, 32: Issac Caruso, 33: Jessica Gonzales, 34: Rock Martinez, 35: Ignacio Garcia, 36: Rachel, Tim and Alexandra, 37: Luis Mena, 38: To-Ree-Nee Wolf Keiser
• March 15, 2019: "Sugar Hill"