Two Daily Wildcat articles about Tucson muralists

The March 27 article about Joe Pagac has a photo showing him in front of the design for the huge mural he was just starting to paint on Epic Bikes. The June 7 article about Jose Ignacio Garcia is especially detailed.

Local artist Joe Pagac travels the nation and paints murals

Local artist lets his murals speak for him

Guadalajara Mexican Grill on Prince

There've been several Guadalajara Grill locations in Tucson — three that I know of. One was Guadalajara Grill, showing murals by Joe Pagac at the Kolb location, on January 27, 2014. Another is the November 23, 2016 entry Guadalajara Mexican Grill on Broadway, done by muralist Jos Villabrille.

So here's the third, murals on the Prince Road location (just west of Mountain). These are from Ignacio Garcia.

Here's the front of the building, along Prince:

The left end of the building front, zoomed in:

The west side of the building:

Near the left side of the previous photo, near the entrance door:

And at the right side of that wall:

I took the photos on April 29, 2016 (but didn't find them until a couple of months ago).

(Downtown) Murals being made, part 35: Ignacio Garcia

You may have seen Ignacio Garcia's work at the Park Place Chalk Art Festival. (In each of these blog entries, scroll down and look for the drawings by Jose Ignacio Garcia: 2012, 2015 [look for the incredibly realistic 3-D scorpion], and 2016. I missed the 2014 Festival. And I don't think he was there in 2013.) He's also painted other murals inside and outside Tucson. But the new one on the west side of the Rialto Theatre — which you can see from 5th Avenue a bit north of Broadway — is his most prominent in Tucson, I think.

As some other artists’ did, Ignacio's design evolved after he introduced it in the April 26th meeting at the main library:

Ignacio's original design showed a two-story section of theater. But I wasn't sure which side of the “tower” would have the design, so on May 5th I walked around… and found nothing: no white walls, no scaffolding or hydraulic lifts, etc.

My next trip downtown, May 8th, where I drove and parked (a good place to park — with spaces usually available — is within a few blocks of the three-way intersection of 6th, Toole, and Alameda. There are usually spaces up Toole or along Alameda. From there, all the new murals, except Rock Martinez’, are an easy walk.) Ignacio's mural still didn't seem to be on any of the sides of the Rialto's tower.

May 19th, I caught Ignacio on his hydraulic lift stating to paint the jackalope (which, by the way, is a mythical beast: half jackrabbit, half antelope):

The muralists aimed to finish by May 30th, so I walked to 5th & Broadway to see:

Still a bit more touchup on June 4th:

June 10th, the mural had been signed:

Ignacio replaced the girl riding the jackalope with broadcaster Bill Walton, as you can see in the photo from the original presentation on April 26th:

Sorry for the poor quality. I've emailed Ignacio to ask if he has a better version.

Three more murals to go!

Update: BG Boyd Photo shared this aerial view:

Arizona Daily Star: “9 new murals in downtown scream TUCSON”

Kathleen Allen's article about the Downtown Murals Project was in yesterday's Star, in the Caliente section. If you haven't seen the article, you can click there to read it.

The article includes a mural that wasn't part of the eight Downtown Murals Project artworks: Kati Astreir's mural on 7th at Toole. It also didn't include the new mural on 191 E. Toole or tributes to Prince. But, as I checked the Tucson.com website yesterday evening, it was one of the paper's most popular articles. That's great news for public art in Tucson!

Update (June 19, 2016): If you're walking between Kati Astreir’s mural and Rock Martinez’, don't miss Joe Pagac's spectacular mural next to the tracks where they cross 7th Avenue.

Downtown Mural Project design open house

Tuesday night the 26th, (most of) the artists who'll be painting murals downtown next month showed their work to a crowd at the Joel D. Valdez Main Library…

Some of the works were finished designs; others were still being developed. Here's a video of the artists introducing their work:



(You can also see the video by clicking on its address, here: https://youtu.be/kLSYTiEuZng.)

I snapped some quick photos of some of the designs before the presentation started. Unfortunately, I didn't get them all... but you can see more in the video above... and all in the TAB page mentioned at the bottom of this article.

Jose Ignacio Garcia, Rialto Theatre

Rock Martinez, 440 N. 7th Ave.

Pete Goldlust, 213 E. Broadway

Issac Caruso, at 9 North Scott Ave.

Jessica Gonzales, along Scott between Congress & Broadway, on Wig-O-Rama

Niki Glen, at the west corner of 5th Ave. & Toole.

Luis Gustavo Mena on CenturyLink, 142 E. Pennington St.

The Arizona Daily Star article Design selections of city mural project to be shown publicly has an artist list (though, on Tuesday evening, the online version had formatting errors and maybe a missing name).

Graffiti Protective Coatings is preparing the artists’ “canvases” with a coat of primer paint. The artists start work May 2nd. Stop by! Bring them cold drinks! (Some will be working at night to avoid the heat.)

There are more details and photos of all the mural designs on the Tucson Arts Brigade Mural Arts Program blog in the article City of Tucson Mural Program Announce winning designs for Downtown Murals Open House Tues. April 26. The next meeting, where artists will discuss their progress, is at the Joel Valdez Main Library, in the downstairs meeting room, May 24th from 6-7 pm.

Update (April 28, 2016): Tucson News Now posted a short update after the meeting in Tucson artists to revamp downtown buildings with mural project. (The “For more information” link link at the bottom of the story seems to be outdated, though.)

Update (June 4, 2016): The space for the mural at 213 E. Broadway stayed empty most of May. When I walked by today, I saw the outlines of a different design than the one shown above. I checked and found that a different artist, To-Ree-Nee Wolf Keiser, is filling the space.

Fourth annual Park Place Chalk Art Festival

The fourth annual Park Place Chalk Art Festival was this past weekend, March 31 & April 1. I stopped by to take photos and videos around 8 or 9 am on Monday the 2nd. Here's the sign (in chalk, of course) in front of the north central mall entrance:

And a map with artists' names (as always, you can click on an image for a larger view):

There were two kid zones (shown in yellow on the map above): one at the westernmost end of the mall, and one along the northeast entrance to the mall (which had rows of murals on both sides of the walkway).

Let's start at the west end:

Two videos of this end:


westernmost Kid Zone (by Katie Cooper)


westernmost Kid Zone (by Katie Cooper)

On to the northeast mall entrance:

And two videos:


Kid Zone on west side of northeast mall entrance (by Meghan Minke)


Kid Zone on east side of northeast mall entrance (by Meghan Minke)

You can see these videos in larger sizes, and more videos, on the TucsonArtInfo YouTube channel.

Between the two Kid Zones were the murals by professional artists. Here they are, from west to east.

Holly Schineller

Carolyn Watson Dubisch

Victor Manuel Navarro-Sandoval

Ruben Moreno

Martín Quintanilla

Jose Ignacio Garcia

Matt Cotten

Marisa Salazar

(Sorry, didn't do my usual editing to straighten them. I did try to fix the blue color on murals in the shade.)

Thanks to SAACA for organizing. I can't wait for next year!

Park Place Chalk Art Festival revisited

Last Sunday, I made a quick visit to see the artists drawing at the Park Place Chalk Art Festival. Then, on Tuesday, I came by on my bicycle around 7:30 AM to see the finished works. There were just a few people around, so (I realized after a few minutes) I could lay down the chain barriers around the bigger works to get better photos.

I'll start with the bigger works along the north side of the mall — and give each artist's name after their work:

Susan Kay Johnson

Audra Cobelis

Cindy Guare

Joshua Woodhall

Katy May Goodson

Jose Ignacio Garcia

Chris Leon (too wide for my camera, so I snapped it in three sections)

Matt Cotten

Martin Quintanilla

Toward the west end were smaller works — mostly, I think, by kids and others who just walked up and started to draw. There were hundreds of them! Here are three that caught my eye:


The long walkway to the mall entrance...

...and a 12-minute HD video. I took it as I walked along the rows of murals above. (If you can't play it from the window below, you can try opening the video directly from YouTube.)

Update (April 11, 2013): The first of three pages of photos of the 2013 Festival are here: Park Place Chalk Art Festival, part 1 of 3.