Murals being made, part 82: "Mystery murals" 25+ years later

Murals on south- and west-facing Tucson walls tend to fade faster thanks to our strong sun. So it's nice to see a mural that's stayed bright for more than 25 years. We showed two murals on December 1, 2009 in our post Mystery Murals. I didn't know the murals' history until I met artist Katie Cooper during 2023. It turns out that the murals were painted in 1997. Katie coordinated the mural painting with a lot of children from Keeling Elementary School.

Let's start with a photo of the finished murals that I posted in 2009:

At the right of the photo above is a plaque listing people who contributed. At the end of this post are a closeup photo of the plaque and a list of the names I could decipher from it.

Katie has a photo album with pictures of the murals taking shape, the installation and the dedication. I scanned in the photos. Here they are — not necessarily in perfect order, but generally from start to finish:

Planning

Painting

Installation

Dedication

Artists and other contributors

To the right of the two murals is a list of contributors. First, a 2024 photo of the weather-beaten plaque:

As always, you can click for a larger view. But here's an easier way to see the names. I used the amazing Google Lens to turn the names in the photo into plain text. I've boldfaced the titles and used three dots (…) in places where the text wasn't clear.

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Keeling Neighborhood Association (KA)

…MISSING…
Sally Day, C…
Paula Evans
Amy Rusk-Foushee
Peter Tesluk

PRO Neighborhoods
Arizona Commission on the Arts

Tucson Pima Arts Council : Albert Soto * Anabelle Nuñez
Ward 3 Council Office : Michael Crawford
Keeling Elementary : Art Defilippo, Principal
Amphitheater Extension Programs : Jan Vesley, Director
PAL Program Patti Burris, Director

Staff :

Kevin McNew, Site Director *
Mary Sierra
Cheryl Spenser
Rebecca Colbert

REMCO TV:

Larry Vigansky
Bob Madigan

Installation :

Chuy Manuel, Project Coordinator, City of Tucson *
Marty Birdman
William Flores

Artist :

Katie Cooper *

Keeling and Nash Elementary Students :

Acosta, Reyna
Alberto, David
Arevalo, Emilio
Bass, Andre
Beasley, Charles
Birdow, Chris
Birdow, Jerome
Birdow, Darnel
Brown, Kyle
Byron, Carl
Chacon, Adrian
Durbin, Jessica
Durham, Ariel
Eliot, Casey
Fields, Jon
Fortune, Zachary
Foushee, Ruthe
Garcia, Cassandra
Garcia, Jose Rene
Gutman, Cai
Hall, Megan
Hinthorrn, Richard
Hofferbez, Caleb
Hunter, J.D.
Ingram, Anthony
Ingram, Natasha
Johnson, Mirand
Jones, Ashley
Lockerman-Potter, … *
Locker-Torres, Bryce
Lujan, Grabriel
Lujan, Gabriella
Lujan, Michelle
Martinez, Gregery
Martinez, Trinity
Mata, Abel
Mazitis, Daniella
McCarthy, Harold
McCarthy, Greg
Oyler, Phillip
Perez, Dustin
Perkins, Bryce
Perkins, Guy Paul
Reale, Drew
Richardson, Tiffany
Rubio, Marcos
Rutynowsky, Elizabeth
Smith, Brianne
Stanfield, Aimee
Stanfield, Colin
Tapia, Adrianna
Terek, David
Terek, Lisa Marie
Toland, Thomas
Valenzuela, Mark
Valles, Marco
Viola?, Dominic
Za..., Anthony
Zuniga?, Marisa
Zwerg, Chris
Zwerg, Crystal

* Special Thanks

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Katie and I are hoping that participants will find their names in a Google-type search and discover these photos from 25+ years ago. If you're one of those people, please leave a comment below and let us know!

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!