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.

Youth On Their Own

Near the southeast corner of Pima and Alvernon is a complex of two buildings with a parking lot between. It's called Youth on their Own. On the south side is their mini-mall, at 1642-B North Alvernon; an Isaac Caruso mural graces the north wall of that building with a young woman graduate and saguaro blossoms:

The north side has another building, at 1660 North Alvernon; a long wall stretches from it toward Alvernon. On the wall is a mural with the theme of blowing a seed off of a dandelion. It's hard to see the whole thing from a distance:

The right-hand end looks to me like a stylized flower. Next to it is a dandelion, with seeds floating toward the left end of the mural. Here's the view from the left:

Next, the seed and the dandelion:

Nice, isn't it? It was painted by Porter McDonald; he calls it “Flight.”

I was there on April 10th.

Update (December 7, 2021): The Arizona Daily Star's online section #ThisIsTucson has published a story about Youth On Their Own: For three decades, this Tucson-area nonprofit has helped homeless teens navigate life.

Update (May 3, 2024): Today's post shows a long mural at YOTO's new administration building, a few miles away from here on Country Club Road, painted sometime in the past year.

Update (July 5, 2024): Today I saw the article Youth On Their Own Moves to New “Forever Home” at 2525 N Country Club Rd and realized that the “administration building” actually holds all of YOTO. That complex opened in November, 2023. I stopped by this old location; the murals are still there.

"Living"

Artist Isaac Caruso created the design for the north wall of the La Suprema community building to reflect the history of Barrio Viejo.  It was transferred to a paint-by-number mural that was completed by volunteers.

Photographed Dec. 11, 2019

Complete Mural

Left Side

Center

Right Side

Artist, Volunteers & Sponsors

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

Palo Verde Pool

Four students from Palo Verde High School were selected to paint a mural at the Palo Verde Pool under the guidance of local artist Isaac Caruso assisted by Alex Gomez. The students chosen for the project were Alexis Hirth, Filomena Obono, Jenna Linneman and Sarina Tuskey. The mural focuses on the history and culture of the neighborhood.

Photographed on Nov. 6, 2019

Click on the photo for a larger and sharper image.

Update (June 21, 2022): Today we posted photos of a mural nearby in Palo Verde Park. While I (Jerry Peek) was taking those photos on April 26th, I took close-up photos of the pool mural:

La Suprema Mural Reveal this Friday

Isaac Caruso has painted a new mural at La Suprema Works & Events in Barrio Viejo (just south of downtown). The mural unveiling is this Friday, November 15 from 3:30 to 4:30 pm. Here are a picture of the mural and a form to RSVP:

UnitedWayTucson.org/_mural_reveal

New KVOA-TV video: painting new Palo Verde Pool mural

Four students are working with muralist Isaac Caruso on a new mural that'll be dedicated at the end of the month:



To see the video on the YouTube website, click there.

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) Murals being made, part 32: Issac Caruso

Tucked in a niche along the west side of this niche-like block of Scott Avenue — just north of Congress — is Issac Caruso's new mural, part of the Downtown Murals Project. Isaac's mural is the second we'll cover, start to finish, on this blog. (The story of the first mural we covered — (Downtown) Murals being made, part 31: Niki Glen — went online here earlier this week.)

Isaac worked so quickly that I barely had time to grab photos before he was done! Here's the scene on May 1, after Graffiti Protective Coatings had applied a white primer coat:

As it turned out, he wouldn't use all of the white area. Here's what I saw on May 8th:

Depending on your computer/phone screen, you may not be able to see the design outline. Here's the same photo in high-contrast black-and-white:

I think that Isaac was the first artist to finish his mural. Here it is on May 14th:

Without a super-wide-angle lens and a ladder, it's basically impossible to photograph this mural straight-on. So I did the next best thing: manipulated the heck out of the photo with the free GIMP editor to make it look as if I had. Here's the result:

Let's jump back a month to the mural introduction April 26th. Here's a photo I snapped from the small copy of Isaac's proposed design:

(The color differences may be due to my camera and the editing I did.)

Let's jump ahead again to May 30th. The wall underneath the mural had been white with some exposed brick at the bottom. When I stopped by again on the 30th, that part of the wall was painted blue:

Next Monday, we're on to the story of the next mural!

Update: The aerial view below, from BG Boyd Photo, gives a much better perspective than trying to see this mural from the narrow space below!