Rock Martinez at 6th & Toole

Rock Martinez is one of Tucson's best-known muralists. Nicole Hennig caught him on video, using Periscope, repainting one of the panels next to the 6th Street underpass from Toole Avenue. Periscope encourages vertical videos, so most of this frame (on YouTube) is black:



You can see some of the Periscope chatter and hear Nicole replying to subscribers.

I rode my bike to get a closeup on Sunday the 4th — three days ago.

I'll put a photo of the finished mural online ASAP!

BrokeOut of 4th Avenue

In 2010, we showed a photo of the former BreakOut Studios location on 4th Avenue. Not long after that, I spotted their new location on North Stone Avenue... but I don't see that I posted a photo of the mural on the north side of their building. I'm pretty sure that this is by Rock Martinez:

I took the photo on November 22, 2014.

TUCSON

Let's start 2015 with a mural in a prominent spot: the corner of Speedway & Stone, across from Pima Community College. It was painted around a year ago or so, replacing a Dia de los Muertos mural.
All except the first and last photos are Mark Fleming's taken (according to the timestamp in the photo files) on February 16, 2014. I took the first photo and the last on September 28, 2014 (not long after Mark sent his photos... thanks, Mark!).

T by Titus Castanza

U by Donovan White

C by Rock Martinez

S by Ed Muren III

O by Danny Martin

N by Ruben Moreno

The figure on that last mural seems to be peeling off. It looks like a paste-up. (As always, you can click on a photo for a larger view.)

The artists' names and website links (except Rock Martinez’s) came from a Tucson Sculpture Festival 2014 page.

Have an art-ful 2015! We'll help.

Update (February 15, 2022): The mural is cracked and faded. It's also hidden behind a restaurant. There are photos in today's post TUCSON is fading….

WintaFresh 2013 revisited again

Mark Fleming actually sent me more photos of the WintaFresh mural site than the ones I posted a week ago in WintaFresh 2013 revisited. Here are the rest... starting with one showing the name. (CyFi is muralist Rock Martinez, the man who puts this event together every year.)

By the way, Rock's Facebook page is rock.martinez.10.

New on Toole in 2013 (and Happy 2014!)

I was off my bike, and very busy, for the last half of last year. That meant missing the vibrant art scene along Toole Avenue downtown. (If you don't know Toole, click the "Location" link at the end of this post.) On Christmas Day, I got on my bike for a ride up Toole — from Hotel Congress... past Mat Bevel's butterfly sculpture at the corner of 6th Avenue... slowly past the ever-changing art-covered building at 191-197 Toole... Blocks, the skateboard and accessory shop with a mural on the side... to Solar Culture, near Stone Avenue.

Here are the photos, in order, with captions before each group. (If you want the exact location of anything, just drive or ride along Toole from southeast to northwest. Or, if you're technically-inclined the photos are geotagged... you can download a photo and get the location from a geotagging program. Or, ask me!)

First, the east side of the Rialto Theatre. Joe Pagac had painted a mural there that looked permanent to me. (Here's my March 7th, 2013 post showing the mural being made.) But now Joe is back to painting. The right-hand half of that previous mural was replaced by Joe's old style: promoting Rialto events. The new mural was co-painted by Noah Garcia:

At the northern corner of 6th and Toole, this mural at the left has been finished. It went without a caption for months. This caption, el pueblo unido no será vencido, means — according to a few online translators, at least — “The people united will not be defeated.” (My rough spanish made me think of “the town” instead of “the people.”. Comments, anyone?) Anyway, here's the photo — and the next few photos I snapped:

Along the street north of Skrappys (at 191 E. Toole) — next to the parking lot — have been a couple of sets of mural panels. The panels change from time to time. Here's the southern one, overall, then close-ups of the panels in it:

The next set is missing a panel. From left (northwest) to right (southeast):

On the side of Blocks at 7th & Toole, the latest mural (you can see earlier ones by searching this blog for BLX)... I think it may be by Rock “CyFi” Martinez:

Last, near Stone, where the community-oriented gallery Solar Culture sits, with its amazing rotating sculpture out front...

Give it a spin!



You can also see it, larger, in a separate page, by clicking here: Kati Astraeir shows sculpture near Solar Culture Gallery Tucson.

Update (December 22, 2014): I didn't show the new mural next to the spinning sculpture. And I don't remember if the dragonfly near the roof had been added by then. Mark Fleming took a photo on September 1.

Murals being (re-)made, part 13: Plush parking lot

Polar bear! This new mural caught my eye as I rode by the parking lot for Plush — just east of 5th Avenue and south of 6th Street — on January 20th. (It's in the middle of the parking lot's north wall.) When I rode in, I saw several people painting murals... actually, painting over murals already there. (You can see the parking lot as it was on March 27 and April 16, 2012 in Surrounded by murals: our 700th post.) I can't figure out the name at the left side (if you can, please leave a comment below!), but the name on the right is CyFi, a.k.a. the well-known Tucson muralist Rock Martinez.

They told me the polar bear was finished recently, but that they were doing more. (You can see the first photo of this crew at the end of our May 25, 2011 entry.) Here's the crew — and one of the spectators:

Rock Martinez (CyFi) and Aspir painted the mural. Here are CyFi's photos.

Here's one more. It (which looks to me like a prescription pill bottle) was added after the black background (and the mural at bottom) were painted some time before. I'm not sure if this crew added it or if it was added earlier:

I've been back since to re-photograph the whole parking lot. There's such a backlog of mural photos now that I'll wait to post those. (If you can't wait, stop by the parking lot yourself!)

Rock Martinez in the Tucson Citizen, 2008

The print edition of the Tucson Citizen is no more... though the news“paper” lives on at TucsonCitizen.com. Thousands of articles from 2006 to 2009 are online in the Tucson Citizen Morgue, Part 1 — a great resource. Metro columnist Anne T. Denogean wrote many columns that I enjoyed.

One that I missed — until earlier this month, when I was searching for mural news — is a story about muralist Rock Martinez. She wrote the column From tagging to legitimate artwork on May 2, 2008. In case you missed the story, too, you can click there to read it.

Update (June 19, 2016): As I read this eight-year-old article, I realized that some of the murals are on this blog. Here are the ones I recognize:

• Fanciful images that look like they came out of a kid’s sketchbooks – and they did – are spreading across the wall that stretches for half a city block at Congress and Fifth Avenue: Spider Mural (May 30, 2009; also click the link at the bottom for a later view).
• …the Nimbus Brewing Company: No missing Nimbus (April 24, 2010)
• exploding heart mural on the front of Coffee Vein: You Aorta Have Some Coffee (April 20, 2008)

New in Dunbar/Spring

Melodi King sent this photo of a street corner in the art-filled Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood. It's a new mural painted on a street junction by Rock Martinez and Joe Pagac.

I haven't had a chance to check out the area recently, so if you know the address, please send me email or leave a comment below. Thanks, and enjoy!

Update (May 15, 2012): I realized that I could check the Dunbar/Spring Neighborhood website. Sure enough, the first listing, Neighborhood Mural Complete!, said that the mural is at the corner of 11th & University. It mentions that neighborhood residents helped paint. And it has three photos.

Update (October 10, 2014): The mural has faded quite a bit in three years. You can see it being painted in Rock Martinez' photos.

Don't look

The former Casbah Teahouse and Restaurant, 628 N. 4th Avenue, had murals all along the entranceway. (You can spot one or two of them in the first photo below.)

If you gazed on Medusa (in Greek mythology, at least), with her snakes for hair, you'd turn to stone. So think twice before you scroll down... :)

Artist Rock Martinez started work on this corner sometime before July 16, 2011, which is when I took this first picture:

I stopped by earlier this month, on January 5th, and found the finished beast:

Deconstructed mural?

Deconstructed art is a term for some contemporary art and architecture. But I think it's probably also a good word, by now, for this mural that I saw almost a year ago. It was around a construction site at 44 E. Broadway — last December 15 — where the Sonoran Institute was planning to move in. I haven't had a chance to check it in the last few months, so I'll let you do that as you drive by. If you have a chance, please let me know (by email or with a comment below) if it's been "de-constructed" by now...

Update (May 15, 2012): I found a post on the blog Tucson Kent's World with photos of this mural being painted. Mural Artists in Downtown Tucson has the story, and three photos, of Rock Martinez and Ed Muren painting the mural. The post is dated October 22, 2010 — two months before I snapped my photo.

Murals being made, part 6 (more tomorrow!)

Rock Martinez worked outside Posner's Art Store (1025 N. Park) for maybe five hours yesterday afternoon... with some help from his brother. Other artists, fans, and friends stopped by. Here's a design (pasted over a photo of the storefront) that shows roughly where he's aiming:

The scene not long after I got there at 2 PM:

And at 5:45:

Rock said he wasn't planning to work today, but he'll be back on Monday. Stop by then if you can!

Update (July 12, 2011): The mural is done.

Happy 60th, Bob

Bookmans founder Bob Oldfather (here's his official story from the Bookmans website) has kept new murals on the wall of their flagship store, Grant at Campbell, for years. When I drove in this evening, I saw that Bob is celebrating his 60th birthday (and also, as I found on the website, his store's 35th). This mural on the store's east wall is signed (520)312-7076 Rock Martinez / Tommy Chambers / Art Terrain 2011.

Happy 60th, Bob!

Three hundredth is Fourth

Depending on your frame of mind — and maybe where you live — "4th Avenue" means different parts of Tucson. There's the primarily-residential street north of downtown. Between downtown and the university comes the chunk full of fun shopping and eclectic eating. Another stretch of homes fills Fourth south of downtown. Then, south of 22nd Street, Fourth morphs into a string of businesses and (mostly) Mexican-style restaurants as it crosses through the city of South Tucson. (Past there, I'm not sure... but I'm planning to head far south to check that mural scene.)

For this 300th post — almost five years after Randy started blogging about Tucson murals — here's the latest I've found along Fourth: north, central, and south. (I also have lots more to post from South Tucson!)

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In a neighborhood on the north, the home at 1248 N. 4th has wraparound murals — mostly on Mabel Street. The first view below is from the east end along Mabel, and the second is from the west:

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Head south across Speedway and pass Catalina Park... and you'll be on the university/downtown section of 4th. I'm surprised that I never snapped these next two murals. They're on the northeast corner of Epic Cafe, 745 N. 4th. (As always, you can click on any photo for a larger view... and use your browser's "Back" button to come back.)

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Across the street, on the northwest corner of Trinity Presbyterian Church (400 E. University), are two mosaic murals:
(There's a third mural on the east side.) Update (November 16, 2012): There's also a mural on the north side.

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At the north end of the Magpies Pizza patio is a storefront that looks as if had another business in it sometime recently. If you know what it was, please tell me.	Farther down 4th, The Fathead Shop has opened a new establishment next door called Mr. Head's Gallery & Bar.

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Sacred Art and Piercing Studios, 315 N. 4th, is one of the businesses that keeps mural-hunters busy. Back in August, we showed two of their murals. Here's the same wall a few days ago (January 22)... the mural is signed Rock Martinez & Ruben Moreno:

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On a window of Food Conspiracy Co-op, 412 N. 4th, is the best-hidden mural on the street... this little gem over the shopping carts, a sort of self-reflection:

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Let's finish this trip down Fourth Avenue in the section near South Tucson. At the corner with 22nd Street, La Buena Cocina (248 E. 22nd) was closed for renovation when I stopped by yesterday afternoon. I hope this mural will still be there when they reopen. (Check out the "shelf" at the bottom. It's painted onto the flat wall, but — in this photo, at least — it looks like a piece of wood.)

Thanks for coming along on this lengthy tour of one of Tucson's best mural streets. As I said, there'll be lots more to come from farther down Fourth, and the rest of South Tucson, in the next hundred posts (and the ones after those).