Mural-ific!

(OK, so “mural-ific” isn't a word. Whatever. :) David Aber spotted a very long mural behind the PPEP Tech High School. He wrote: “The first half of the mural is behind the school’s parking lot and easy to photograph:”

(You can click on that photo for a much larger view.)

“A jog in the wall is hiding an interesting section. Therefore I have split it into two photos:”

“The second half of the mural is directly behind the school and access is blocked by a fence... There's not much I can do about that part of the mural behind the fence. When school resumes in the Fall it shouldn’t be too hard to get the necessary permission:”

What a fabulous mural! Thank you, David.

Update (December 29, 2015): David sent closeup photos of that second half of the mural.

Maybe a mural, part 63: A house!

Every so often, something turns up that isn't exactly a “mural” — for instance, someone hangs paintings on their (house) wall. I title those blog entries “maybe a mural.”

Mark Fleming spotted an amazing little house that's basically a mural. Have a look:

You can see the address is 428 1/2; that's on 6th Street, but the house is actually in the alley, Mark says. (I can't find out how to enter 1/2 (“half”) into Google Maps and Blogger Location, so I used cross streets instead.)

Amazing. And thanks, as always, Mark.

Tattooed wall

Mark Fleming sent these photos of the east wall of Staring without Caring Tattoo. The whole mural is first; details come next:

Thanks as always, Mark.

What murals can do to a (NYC subway) tunnel

I came across this New York Times article on May 31st:

Bringing a Little Color to a Passage at the 191st Street Station

It's more than “a little” color. Wow!

Rolling on the rails/door

Here's a roll-up door at Southbound Studios on February 22nd:

The locomotive has the street address, 1136, on its side.

Eller inspiration next to the Rillito

Out for a walk on the south side of the Rillito River, just east of 1st Avenue, I noticed a long mural on the side of a parking lot wall facing the Rillito. Here it is, from left to right (the first one shows my shadow):

I was there near sunset on March 5th. Thanks to Eller (UA) Make a Difference Day 2012.

Murals being made, part 28

Back on May 7th, I posted a photo of what I thought was a complete mural. But when I rode by the mural again on May 13th, the long white area underneath the words and handprints had more words.

So that photo on February 28th wasn't complete. Here's my photo from May 13th:

(I'm re-posting this to fix a mistake in the title. It's part 28, not part 27.)

Tucson scene mural (mostly) whitewashed

The longstanding mural on the wall of the Former Skrappy’s youth center has been replaced by… nothing. Well, almost… the edges of the former mural are still there:

I snapped the photo on May 12th. Let's hope that the mural is replaced with one that's as imaginative!

By the way, the former mural — without some of the embellishment — is in our May 25, 2009 entry.

Mexicayotl murals mostly missing

Back on August 15, 2013, we posted photos by Mark Fleming showing murals pasted on the front of Mexicayotl Academy. The years — and weather — aren't kind to pasted-up murals. I stopped by on April 5th and saw this (mostly) sad scene:

On the roof, I spotted a mural that I'm not sure Mark saw or decided to send to me:

Update: (February 4, 2016): There's a new mural around the corner.

Tagger trashes amazing Dunbar/Spring mural

I'm sad to tell you that one of Tucson's most magnificent murals has been tagged. The mural covers much of the block of 9th Avenue south of University in the art-filled Dunbar/Spring neighborhood. I noticed the damage on April 25th, but I'd forgotten to post it until now. (Maybe I wanted to forget this awful vandalism.)

Let's start with the photo from 9th & University on the May 25, 2008 entry:


Now for a view of the same spot from the opposite side, then a close-up of the lovely tag:

I know that the city hires a contractor to erase tags on places like the blank walls along Aviation Bikeway. But how to erase a tag on a work of art like this? I'm afraid to try to contact artist Susan Kay Johnson — who lives nearby — because I'd guess this destruction makes her even more sad (and furious) than I am.

Majestic mural on Main

David Aber just sent this photo of a tile mural that fills the home's porch from floor to ceiling:

He took the photo on January 26, 2014. Thank you, David!

Hands and stars for public education

Though it's a bit hard to see (click on the photo for a larger view), the longggg mural says “Support public education!!” It was on the north side of Broadway, across from the corner with Bryant Avenue, on February 28th.

Update (May 25, 2015): There's more now.

Signs morph into a banana

Foe years now, muralist Joe Pagac has been painting murals on the east side of the Rialto Theatre. Most of the murals were about upcoming concerts, but the right end of the murals sprouted something new in 2012: a man holding a sort-of protest sign. From time to time, the sign changed. A few years later, a change on the building led to a change on the sign. Let's take a look.

April 11, 2012
May 17, 2012
February 23, 2013
December 25, 2013
December 21, 2014
March 7, 2015

In the next-to-last view above, a new drainspout covered the right end of the mural. Joe didn't wait long to replace the half-covered man with a painting showing the man's arm wrapped around the drainspout... and, instead of holding a sign in his other hand, he holds up a banana. Brilliant... and fun!

I'm not sure that I caught all of the signs over the years, but you get the idea. Thanks, Joe.

10th and Park, part 2

In Monday's entry, we showed a block party last Saturday around the corner of 10th Street and Park Avenue. I had to leave before the murals were done, so I came back Sunday morning to grab some photos. What I found was...

...nothing except the building as it looked before Saturday's event. (The empty space at the right edge was where a group was painting a black-and-white mural; the two spaces on the left side had the color murals being made.)

I tweeted Kristin Tovar, @WhyILiveWhereILive, on Twitter to ask if she knew the story. The building owner wanted the murals to be mobile, she wrote; they were attached in frames and with rope for just that reason. The artists decided to take the murals after the day was over. She sent along a photo she found of the mural after the group of painters had finished it:

I'll try to keep you in touch with murals from Why I Love Where I Live and the Community Mural Project.

10th and Park, part 1

Saturday the 25th was a celebration at the corner of 10th Street and Park Avenue: a community mural project to brighten up the gray walls of the building on the southwest corner.

Today! pic.twitter.com/bmu1O1RAOP

— Words On The Avenue (@WordsOnTheAve) April 25, 2015

The main attraction was probably the mural being painted on a piece of cloth tied to the north side of that building — for Words on the Avenue:

I hadn't heard of Words on the Avenue. People told me that they have a monthly open-mic evening to, as their Twitter profile says, “... unify the writing world by creating a space where all genres can co-exist. Find us at Café Passé every last Sunday of the Month.”

To the left is a closeup of one of the muralists.

Sketch artist Chelsea showed me the mural design. The original plan was to project the design onto the canvas and trace it out in fine lines. But the light was too bright. Drawing a grid over the design, then repeating the grid on the white background of the mural, did the job. Next, a closeup showing the design and the grid:

Kristin, one of the organizers, told me that the mural would be finished when I saw WORDS ON THE AVENUE above the mural design. (More on that later...)

This mural was only part of the celebration. Students chalked thank-you notes on the sidewalk in front of the TUSD (Tucson Unified School District) building on the southeast corner. The middle of the intersection was filled with potted desert plants and a flower painted around the cover in the center. "STREET CLOSED" barricades and food trucks opened the corner for everyone to walk through from side to side. Two other murals were being made for the east side of 95 South Park. The first photo below shows artists making a mural, and the second shows the other mural next to a “What do you want in your neighborhood?” suggestion board:

I left the party after an hour or so, before the first mural was done. I came back the next day — on Sunday morning — to snap photos of the rest of what had happened. The picture wasn't pretty, as you'll see next time...