Dirty T Tamarindo on St. Marys

The Tucson Foodie article 'Dirty T Tamarindo' to open a brick-and-mortar on the west side tells about the candy — based on recipes from Hermosillo, Sonora — and how it's spread from locations around Tucson to a store on St. Marys Road. Here's the store on December 16, 2023:

That day, I was so interested in the goodies inside that I forgot to take photos of other murals surrounding the little building. So I came back on May 26, 2024 for more goodies and more photos:

(“Dirty T” is a name for Tucson.)

Google Maps didn't want to show the address 1211 W. Saint Marys Road in the box below, at the end of this post; it changes that to Menlo Plaza Shopping Center. The link in that sentence is to Bing Maps.

Murals being made, part 80: Canyon Restoration

A former Allstate insurance office became Canyon Restoration — probably sometime last year. (The business isn't restoration for canyons. They repair things like water damage.) The formerly boring white building now has a big mural, and a couple of small ones, by Alejandra Trujillo.

Let's start with the building on April 2, 2024. At the end, we'll show photos of the painting in progress and also the building before the mural.

The photo above shows the north wall, along Bellevue Street, with a big mural. At the top left is a former Allstate sign that the artist turned into a mural:

Two more closeups, from left to right… the first one is followed by a cropped version showing the artist's signature:

As you can see in the closeup above, this might have been an interesting job for Alejandra because because the back (west) side of the building is a lot lower than the front (east) side.

Here's the front (east) side with an former Allstate sign that's now a little mural:

Next, the mural in progress on February 13, 2024:

As always, to see more detail, click on the photo above.

This Google Maps Street view from April 2023 shows a Canyon Restoration sign on the east side and an Allstate sign on the north side:

Congress mural parade 3 of 3: 1002 W. Congress

Our last two posts (Congress mural parade 1 of 3: 910 W. Congress and Congress mural parade 2 of 3: 914 W. Congress) show murals on the southeast corner of Congress and Grande. The mural near the northeast corner is in our August 14, 2020 post "The Triumph of the Human Spirit". Today, the northwest corner: mural-covered Ashtanga Yoga, Latin restaurant La Chaiteria and plant-based kitchen tumerico.

We've already shown this half of the building in three posts:

• July 17, 2020: La Chaiteria, Part I
• July 21, 2020: La Chaiteria, Part II
• April 6, 2021: Ashtanga Yoga

Not much has changed. Here's the south side, along Congress, on May 5, 2024:

The east side, along Grande, has changed since our previous post. Now, a sign for La Chaiteria and tumerico stretch along the top of the wall above the murals:

(I was there early in the morning on May 5. I couldn't avoid the sun glare.)

Back on January 13, 2024, I stopped in at La Chaiteria and tumerico. Though we usually don't show murals indoors in restaurants and other places that aren't free to the public, I'll ignore our guideline for these:

Murals being made, part 78: Raspados y Mas (y mas)

Here's a building next to the corner of 6th Avenue & 36th Street that advertises raspados (shaved ice topped with fruit and syrup) and more. I've actually never seen this small building open, but it's worth a visit because it's covered with murals. Although the building doesn't have an address number on it, Google Maps says the name is Raspados y Mas and its address is 2616 S. 6th Avenue. Across the parking lot, at 2618 S. 6th Avenue, is Taqueria Pico de Gallo (which we saw in the previous post, Tacos and more (and more)). To make things simple, let's say the buildings are both near the southwest corner of 6th Avenue and 36th Street.

The previous post showed the south side of the parking lot: the side of the taqueria and the fence just behind it. In this post, we'll see the Raspados y Mas building as well as another mural on the fence at the back (northwest corner) of the parking lot.

Enough directions! Let's go.

March, 2023

BG Boyd took the next three photos of a mural in progress along the back (northwest corner) of the parking lot:

The murals above are by Alejandra Trujillo, from TucsonAZMurals.com/murals/taqueria_pico_de_gallo. (Thanks, BG.)

June 6, 2023

Driving down 6th Avenue before Pico de Gallo opened, I noticed it was under construction (as I showed in the previous post). The parking lot only had three or four cars, so I snapped an overall photo of the back wall and Raspados y Mas:

Walking closer to the mural in the back, I saw that it wasn't quite finished. For instance, some faces were blank:

At the northeast corner of the parking lot, the raspados building was being painted top-to-bottom. Below are the south side, a couple of closeups of the south side, and the east side. Watch for the white outlines of things to be painted:

David Aber's photos, October 2023

David Aber took the two photos below on October 14, 2023. They show the previous building at the northeast side of the parking lot:

By Wagon Burner Arts

By Wagon Burner Arts

December 16, 2023

The back wall had all of the faces. I decided that Alejandra had finished it:

Here are closeups from left (south) to right (north). Look for some dates — including Feb. 1990 with a picture of a cafe at the bottom middle, which I'm guessing is when Pico de Gallo opened:

I took more photos of the Raspados y Mas building's south side. From left (west) to right (east):

The murals on the south and east walls were signed “Wagon Burner Arts”.

Many more murals nearby…

While I was there on December 16, 2023, I spotted lots of murals just west of this area. For instance, one long wall has 26 murals: one for each letter of the alphabet. They should go online during the week of April 1, 2024.

Take a mural tour of Ambos Nogales

Now that the weather is getting hot, why not climb around 1,400 feet in altitude to Nogales, Arizona? Downtown on the US side has more and more murals. The TripAdvisor listing for Nogales, AZ has lots of places to eat.

There are also some murals on the Sonoran side — including one at the (very interesting) Museo de Arte de Nogales, which is not far from the main DeConcini Port of Entry. More about the Sonoran side is coming in another post.

This post has photos taken during several visits over the past few years. I'll probably add another post sometime with murals I missed or that were being made… look for an “Update:” at the end of this post for a link.

The captions are above each photo (look for the colon : after each caption).

The first photo is from April 25, 2015, when Nogales didn't have many murals. This mural is still at Kory's, 15 North Morley Avenue, next to the Morley pedestrian entry into Mexico:

Now to April 22, 2021. I found the first mural that day as it was being painted. This is on Foxworth-Galbraith Lumber Co., on East Court Avenue east of Grand Avenue:

(The finished mural is farther down in this post.)

That same day, the next mural, on a storage container, was behind a Jack in the Box restaurant at 208 North Grand Avenue. Now (2023) both the container and the restaurant are gone… Google Maps says a Filibertos Restaurant has taken its place:

Next are photos from my visit on November 29, 2022. I'll start with a mural outside the small but interesting Hilltop Gallery:

At the entrance to Kino Park and the Chamber of Commerce (with lots of visitor information) is this mural with a woman waving US and Mexican flags, riding a hummingbird as if it were a horse:

The mural below is close by, near the Chamber of Commerce / Visitor Center entrance. Grecia Solorio painted it:

Now back to downtown Nogales, AZ. This mural is on Court Avenue just west of the railroad tracks. It has a "Fresh from Mexico" flag near the top:

The second photo near the top of this post was a mural being made on Foxworth-Galbraith Lumber Co., on East Court Avenue east of Grand Avenue, by Karla Osete. When I visited on November 29, 2012, it had been finished:

On the back (east) side of the Circle K, 236 North Grand Avenue, is this mural by Isaac Caruso from Tucson and Tony Plak from Nogales:

Next, another mural by Tony Plak. It's on the second floor of the building at 220 North Morley Avenue:

This sign on Sahuarita Bikes, 204 North Morley Avenue, looks like a mural to me:

Here's the north wall of 159 North Morley Avenue. It's by an (obviously amazing) high school student Grecia Solorio, Tony Plak and an artist I couldn't find on Instagram. I couldn't quite fit the mural in my phone's camera, even with its wideangle lens:

The big mural above La Cinderella, 71 North Morley Avenue, had been in progress for quite a while when I visited on November 29, 2022. The Nogales International news article As mural moves forward, an artist revisits his roots (last updated February 13, 2023) has more of the story about artist Carlos Ibarra — as well as some other Nogales murals and plans for an arts district. You can see some of the mural behind the tarps:

On the south side of a former bank at 112 North Grand Avenue is this mural that I believe is by Alejandra Trujillo (she typically doesn't sign her full name):

Today (April 18, 2024) the QR code leads to a “not found” page. But the website is for (as you'd expect) the Santa Cruz Valley National Heritage Area, SantaCruzHeritage.org.

The last mural in today's post is close to the pedestrian entry at the main DeConcini Port of Entry. It's on the wall of 38 North Terrace:

Watch for updates with more murals on the Arizona side as well as some from the Mexican side.