Former residents line Grande Avenue

The streets north and south of the corner of Grande & Huron are lined with freestanding tile murals with photos of people. They're in the same style as the better-known Windows to the Past, Gateway to the Future downtown, but in a lot more intimate setting.

Here's the street from north (top) to south (bottom):

SE corner of Delaware, N. side	SE corner of Delaware, S. side
In front of 901 N. Graande, N. side	In front of 901 N. Graande, S. side
750 N. Grande, N. side	750 N. Grande, S. side
NE corner w/Sonora, N. side	NE corner w/Sonora, S. side

I took the photos on July 23, 2011.

Flowers on North Grande

As I ride around Tucson on my bicycle, I find lots of buildings with flowers painted on the wall. Here's the front of 1006 N. Grande on July 23rd:

Arts for All Inc.

That's the west side of the Arts for All Inc. building on July 10, 2011. And a look around the parking lot... the east end:

the southwest end:

the southeast end:

and the south center (in the middle of the previous two):

That's Gandhi… “Be the change you wish to be in the world…”

(As always, you can click on a photo for a slideshow of larger views.)

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:

Finding other murals, street art, etc.

A friend just sent me one of those emailed collections of photos... you've probably gotten some of them in your own inbox from time to time. This one was of amazing street art. I thought of some things that other art lovers (like you!) might want to know:

• Most of those email photo collections don't give credit to the original photographer(s) or the artists. So I searched the Internet to try to find a website with the same photos. I found a page on Street Art Utopia, 106 of the most beloved Street Art Photos – Year 2010. It's a fun site... you can find more photos around that site. You can also search the Internet for [ mural ] or [ street art ], etc. One place I found right away was a Tucson Street Art page.
  
• Google has a reverse image search where you can show Google a photo and it will look around the Internet for similar photos. (There are other services, but I know Google's best.) To use it, go to images.google.com and, in the search box in the middle of the screen, click the little camera icon at the right side. Then Google will ask you to either upload a photo from your computer or to give the location of a photo that's already on the Internet. (If the photo you want to search for comes from an email message, first save that photo file onto your desktop -- or to any place on your computer -- then upload it to Google.)

Happy hunting!

Balboa Heights Park

This mural is behind a bicycle rack and a eucalyptus tree at Balboa Heights Park, on the west wall, the north side. The park is at 2526 N. Castro (s. of Jacinto). I snapped the photo (with a zoom lens) on July 10, 2011.

Decorated driveway

I found this mural on July 8, 2011, along the driveway at 1240 E. Adelaide.

A fin(e) corner for a building

This car tail fin mural is painted around a corner of Sir Veza's Taco Garage. The building itself is on the northwest corner of Speedway & Swan. My notes say that this fin is painted on the northwest corner of the building, but I think it might actually be the southeast corner. (If you drive by there, would you please post a comment below or send me an email? Thanks.)

I took the photo on July 6, 2011.

A bit newer at 6th & Toole

Last week's post New at 6th & Toole, part 2 showed three sides of the building just north of the 6th Avenue underpass. Yesterday was a view of the southeast wall on June 26.

In between those dates — on October 4, 2011 — I found a mural of a man standing on the southeast wall, with his hand coming out of the south wall:

I'm going to try to stop by this building more often!

Not as new at 6th & Toole

Last week, in the post New at 6th & Toole, part 2, we showed a photo of the new painting work on two (well, three) sides of the building just north of the 6th Avenue underpass. Here's a view of the southeast wall (the right side of that photo from last week) earlier, as some of the old works (and maybe some tags?) had been painted over — and the new ones not painted yet:

I snapped the photo near sunrise on June 26, 2011.

(P.S. Happy Friday the 13th!)

Peppi's House

At the northwest corner of the main TMC (Tucson Medical Center) campus is the hospice named Peppi's House. One outside wall on the east is covered with a tile mural:

Here's a closeup:

That east-side mural is from Santa Theresa Tile Works. On the north side, near the main entrance, are two murals with quotations, names of donors, "Peppi's House dedicated May 22, 2007" and "Artwork created by Nina Borgia-Aberle © 2007:


I took the photos on June 23, 2011. (As always, you can click on a photo for a larger view.)

Update (April 26, 2021): The bottom of the mural has been updated sometime since I took these photos. Today's entry has a recent photo and information about the mural.

Siobhan on Toole

On June 26, I noticed a newly-painted storefront at 197 E. Toole, next to Skrappys.

As seems to happen often these days, I'm posting this photo at the last minute — and haven't had time to find out more about the person or business there. Some online searching led me to Siobhan's page on the Model Mayhem website. I'll try to find out more soon... in the meantime, if you have details, please add a comment below...

Update (6 hours later): Elizabeth Albert answered my email to ask whether she knows anything about the building and mural. She wrote "I am actually the artist behind that mural :). I design clothing but also paint." Along with the Model Mayhem link above, her email signature has more info:

2009 People's Choice Designer - Scottsdale Fashion Week
Website: www.siobhanclothing.com
Purchase: www.siobhanclothing.etsy.com
Make Friends: www.facebook.com/siobhan.clothing
Twitter: Siobhan Clothing
Blog: www.YourLifeLnDesign.blogspot.com

Townsend Middle School, OMA

(No, that's not OMG. :) OMA is a program named Opening Minds through the Arts, and Ft. Lowell Townsend K-8 School is (its website says) an International and OMA Gold School.

Here are photos from June 23, 2011 of a wall and a tile mural on the school's southwest corner. Townsend Middle School is at 2120 North Beverly.

Dodge Middle School

This mural is on the front of Ida Flood Dodge Middle School, 5831 East Pima. (Go Bulldogs!)

Cactus and chile

There are several murals at 5634 E. Pima. Here's the east side (in mottled early sunlight):

And, on the front...

... chile ristras hanging on vigas — but they're actually murals. The chiles had lost their red color when I was there on the morning of June 19, 2011.

Harlow Gardens

This was the early-morning scene in front of the store, 5620 E. Pima, on June 19, 2011.

Maybe a mural, part 31: sidewalk & wall

It's been a little more than a week since the previous post (part 30) in our series of art that might or might not be a "mural."

This is a photo of the sidewalk and wall at Centuras Professional Plaza, 5210 E. Pima, near sunrise on June 19.

Update (April 21, 2012): Part 32 is online.

Second Amendment Sports

The nural is on the west wall of the store at 5146 East Pima. I snapped the photo on June 19, 2011.

New at 6th & Toole, part 2

Over the years, we've posted a quite a few photos of the building at the northeast corner of 6th, Toole and Alameda. (The northwest end of the building houses Skrappys. The southeast end is near the 6th Street underpass.)

It's changed a lot in the past few months. Here's a view on Monday evening, January 2nd:

The only parts that haven't changed are at the far left and far right of the photo above. We'll have more photos soon...

Update (January 11, 2012): Some other photos of this mural Mecca are:

• Siobhan on Toole (January 11, 2012)
• Skrappys again reinvents its front wall (again)
• Skrappys, October 2010
• Train, trolley, and a three-eyed alien (daytime)
• Murals by moonlight (the second photo on that page)
• Maybe a mural, part five (previous incarnation of the right [southeast] side, also the back side of building [by the tracks])

New at 6th & Toole, part 1

Though I'm still posting the mural photos I took during the second half of 2011, I didn't want to wait a few months to show something more recent. (Six months is a long time in Tucson murals!) If you haven't been by the intersection of 6th, Toole and Alameda, it looks almost completely different than it did back in June.

Here's the first of two photos I took there this evening (January 2). It's at the northwest corner. I've heard it's by Joe Pagac — the muralist who also painted the front of Big Brothers Big Sisters Angel Youth Center, on the southwest corner, back in June — and it looks like his work to me. But I didn't find a signature:

Joe's website doesn't mention it. If you know, please post a comment here.

Campbell crossing murals

As you cross Campbell near UMC (University Medical Center, 1501 N. Campbell, you may walk by these murals in the center island:



Sometime before I was there on June 19, 2011, the artist credit plaque was trashed by a tagger. It made me angry enough to spend a lot of time editing my photo to remove (almost) all of the tags. Click on the photo if you'd like a larger view.

More murals under I-10

Murals along freeway underpasses are pretty common sights — especially along the recently-renovated stretch of Interstate 10 through downtown. Yesterday's post showed the 22nd Street underpass, which probably thousands of people drive by every day. I thought I'd start 2012 with a more unusual mural spot in Tucson. You won't see these from the freeway. Instead, park and walk — or ride your bicycle — four blocks north, to the 18th Avenue underpass. When I took these photos on June 1, 2011, the underpass was for pedestrians only.

I walked around the underpass clockwise from the southeast corner. Here's the southeast:

Second, the southwest corner:

Third, in the northwest:

The north center (much bigger than the others):

And, last, the northeast corner:

Happy mural-hunting in 2012!

22nd Street underpass

The underpass that takes I-10 over 22nd Street is lined with murals. Both sides looked similar (though I didn't check carefully), but the north side is signed Gonzalo E. 2005 to 2009, and the south side is signed Gonzalo E. Super Barrio 2010. Here's the north side:

You can click on the image for a larger view, but Blogger's new image-viewer still shrinks the width to fit your screen. For a full-size image that you can scroll across to really see the mural, try this wide view.

Parque de San Cosme

El Parque de San Cosme is along Simpson Street, just south of the new fire station, east of I-10 and just east of the El Paso & Southwestern Greenway. (The "official" address, from the Tucson Parks & Recreation “special places” web page, is 496 W. Cushing Street, but it's actually on Simpson.)

Neither Google Maps or Mapquest had it at the time I checked. But here's a Google Map with the marker on the spot. It's a nice spot, with tables, a gazebo, and a big wraparound mural. Here's the mural from the southwest side:

and the southeast:


The muralist was Luis Gustavo Mena.

Update (December 23, 2013): There are more photos and information in today's entry, Parque de San Cosme, on the blog Tucson's Pocket Parks.

Update (March 3, 2014): Here are two close-ups of the mural from its center and right panels:

Near La Frontera Arizona

I rode by this mural on June 1st. It's in front of the parking lot for La Frontera Arizona, 502 W. 29th. The muralist was Carlos Valenzuela.