While at Five Points...

If you haven't been to Five Points (south of downtown, where Stone and 6th Avenues meet) — or haven't been recently — there's a lot happening! This month a new sculpture of Cesar Chavez, plus arches over the five streets that meet at the intersection, are due to be dedicated. You can eat, shop, stay, and go to one of the new buildings sprouting up all over.

While I'm at it, here's a photo of the sculpture and one of the arches, looking northwest. The sculptor was Luis Mena, who's also painted a number of murals around town:

One block northwest along Stone is an office that looks like a house. It's been there for years, and it has some nice tile murals on front. (Although you can enter from Stone, the building is actually on Russell Avenue.)

Now the murals, left to right, followed by the artist's signature from the third mural:

The business here is Carly Quinn Designs.

I took the photo of the building front on November 18, 2020 and the rest on February 19, 2021.

Murals Being Made, Part 50: Davis Elementary main entrrance

I guess it's a good thing to have too much of a good thing — if it's murals, anyway. David Aber and I are swimming in a sea of (mostly, I think) acrylic paint these days. I've been going back to my photos from the past year or so, cross-checking to try to be sure I've posted everything.

On May 12, 2018, I stopped by mural-covered Davis Bilingual Elementary school to snap photos of Luis Gustavo Mena painting a doors at the school's main (south) entrance. He wasn't finished at the time I got there; I just noticed this as I was going through the photos.

I went back to the school for permission on May 15th (2019). The person I spoke with said that Mena (as he calls himself) is well-loved and has done a lot for the school. She pointed me toward his cafeteria mural and let me wander the school to find all the murals by students. I'll include all of those photos in a later blog entry (I promise :).

Let's start with the photo I took a year ago:

Next, the finished mural, followed by a closeup of Dolores Huerta:

The colored handprints are by students.

Mena repaints Roskruge mural (our 1,300th post)

This blog started on July 12, 2006. This is the 1300th entry since then… most are murals,but some are news and announcements. We have plenty more murals waiting to go online… please stay tuned!

Long-time Tucson artist Luis Mena has been here much longer than the blog! He's still painting murals — as well as sculpting and other work, he told me recently. One of his latest projects was restoring his mural on the back wall of the Roskruge Elementary and Bilingual Middle School auditorium stage. It's one of at least two murals he's painted in the school over the years. You can see them by clicking through the list below.

The top mural in the first page below is the auditorium stage mural during October, 2016, as restoration started. See the blank white band running down from the woman's dress? If I remember correctly: Some kind of internet equipment was hung there; it was moved to a side of the stage. There was more to do, too.

Below are the five blog entries showing murals at Roskruge before he started repainting. (Most of the artists were painted by other artists.) You can come back here by clicking your browser's “Back” (or <—) button.

Note that murals are not open to the public without permission. Check in at the office: Come in the north entrance, then turn left at the top of the double stairway inside.

• Roskruge Part 1 of 3 (January 9, 2017)
• Roskruge Part 2 of 3 (January 11, 2017)
• Roskruge Part 3 of 3 (January 13, 2017)
• Scholars on Second Avenue (January 12, 2010)
• What the scholars see (November 3, 2011)

After Mena told me that he'd be repairing the mural, I stopped by on June 21st, 2017. He suggested I stand on a ladder for a better view over the raised auditorium stage. Here's my first photo:

I'm not sure if he'd done much work by this point; the mural looked pretty much the same as in David's photo posted on January 9th.

Mena showed me some of his plans. Here's the stripe that I mentioned:

Next, two closeups of the bottom left. Roskruge's school mascot is a puma, and there's one in the first photo below… though I'd guess it's not always shown with its skeleton inside:

The woman dancing is Mena's daughter. Here he's working from a photograph of her.

Above, on a podium, is the Mayan plaque he'll add to the mural. To the left, he's holding the plaque in the place it'll go.

I came back on August 10th, when (I think) he was basically finished. First, here's the photo David Aber took; then, a photo I took in August:

(If you'd like to compare larger versions of the photos: Click on one of them, then click on the thumbnails at the bottom of the slideshow window that opens.)

You can see that he's fixed the white stripe next to his daughter. The plaque is near the top right corner. There are probably some smaller changes that I didn't notice. (And the two hanging decorations in front of the mural have been taken down sometime since October of last year.)

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.

Murals Through Our Parents' Eyes

Years ago, the University of Arizona put a series of pages online called Through Our Parents' Eyes: History & Culture of Southern Arizona. Part of the site are six pages on Chicano Murals in Tucson. From there are links to six early muralists — Antonio Pazos, David Tineo, Luis Gustavo Mena with Paul Lira, Martin Moreno, and Roberto Castillo. Each page has mural photos by James S. Griffith.

It's worth a look. (And, by the way, we're always looking for historic murals and stories. This blog started in 2006, and we've only found a few older photos since. Please contact me; thanks.)

Early mural by Luis Gustavo Mena

Luis Gustavo Mena has been a Tucson muralist for decades. His best-known mural might be downtown where Broadway and Congress merge. (That post also has a link to a 2007 newspaper article about him.) A similar mural is harder to spot; it's along a parking lot for MATZ Truck Accessories on south 12th. One of his earlier works, of Mexican president Benito Juarez, is even harder to spot: on a wall between two buildings at 3477 S. 12th Avenue:

(An easy way to get there from western and central parts of Tucson is by taking the I-10 frontage road past downtown, then following the center lanes that dump you onto South 12th in South Tucson. The mural is in the block past 44th Street, on the north wall of a hair stylists' building at the corner with Jetty.)

Because the mural is on a north-facing wall, this (and the narrow space between the buildings) probably have helped shield it from sun — and preserve it for more than 30 years. (Under the artist's name at the upper right is 8,18,81 — which means August 18, 1981.) Mena was about 15 years old when he painted this mural! I had a long talk with another early Tucson muralist at Raices Taller 222 gallery, and I'm looking forward to sharing her stories with you sometime in 2013. She remembered this mural right away; it was in the time when Mena used a point-distance style, she said.

Happy Thanksgiving to you, your family, friends...! (I'm headed for one of my favorite Tucson Turkey-day traditions, the dinner at Govinda's vegetarian buffet. They usually have a live turkey or two wandering the grounds, looking for handouts! I'm not a devout vegetarian, but I do love the food and the setting.)

Update (June 28, 2015): Mark Fleming sent photos and gave the location as the El Gorrion Restaurant parking lot at 3459 South 12th Avenue.

You can't miss this mural...

…though somehow we haven't put it onto this blog yet. It's on the east side of the entrance to Hotel Arizona, just at the place where Broadway and Congress merge.

(Update: Luis Mena painted this. There's more about him and the mural in the August 14, 2007 Tucson Citizen article Buildings are his canvases. You can also find an earlier story — from September 28, 2000, as the mural was being painted — in the Tucson Citizen archives: A brush with history. Unfortunately, those photos were lost.)

The Legacy of Cesar Chavez

One not easily found, because it is in an industrial area off Benson Highway, is the PPEP mural that honors Cesar Chavez and also depicts the original 1957 Chevy bus “La Tortuga” (tortoise) that was used when PPEP started in 1967. The artist is Luis Mena.

Submitted by Neil Amstutz

Update (September 9, 2012): Thanks to Google and an article about the PPEP Farmworker Hall of Fame, I (Jerry) found the mural. It's at 802 E. 46th Street.

Update (July 18, 2024): Google Maps Street View shows that the mural was still there during April, 2022: