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.

Around Artemis

On April 6, 2010, we showed a mural on the south wall of Artemis Design, 2943 N. Stone. On October 4, 2011, I noticed that the north side of the building also has art:

Winsett Park mural (before) being restored

If you've walked along Fourth Avenue or been to one of the festivals there, you've probably seen the mural “Together We Thrive” that wraps around Winsett Park, 316 N. 4th.

The Tucson Arts Brigade is restoring the mural. If you're between 13 and 17 and you want to help, they meet each Tuesday between 3 and 5 PM at Howenstine Magnet High School, 555 South Tucson Blvd. There's more info on the Tucson Arts Brigade website murals page; though it (currently) says the project will finish in April, Michael Schwartz (TAB's Executive Director) told me that the target date is now June 15th. If you'd like, you can bring a mentor up to age 22 or so.

I stopped by the park on October 4, 2011 — before restoration started — and found the gates were open. (The park is often closed when there isn't an event going on.) I snapped a series of photos in a semicircle from the rear wall southeast, to the beans and seeds under the west end of the back wall, to the west end of the north wall, to the right (east) end of the north wall:

We've posted some earlier photos of two parts of the mural, as well as a photo of the stage (which isn't shown above).

Uncle Bob's second mural

Back on March 11, 2010, we posted a photo of the mural along Glenn, just east of Stone, at Uncle Bob's Used Cars.

On October 4, 2011, I noticed another car-and-road mural just south of the one mentioned above. It was along the south side of the parking lot for Uncle Bob's. Though the official address for Uncle Bob's is 20 E. Glenn, I guesstimated that the wall was at 2756 N. Stone. Whatever... here's a photo (as always, you can click for a larger view):

On fire on Stone

When I rode by on October 4, 2011, this store at the corner of Stone and Jacinto had flames coming out of the roof. I didn't call 911, of course, but I thought it was a fun idea for a mural.

Here's a closer view of the mural on their middle window:

Come on down! Aloha! Assuming those flames weren't real, I'm sure they have some hot deals...

The bottom mural is signed Gorman 696-3480.

29th Street overpass dedication May 9th

The pedestrian bridge over 29th Street at Columbus has been getting a mural makeover for the past two years. (If you haven't seen it recently, there are photos in our March 14th entry.)

The Tucson Arts Brigade press release says that the project is almost done. The unveiling celebration will be Wednesday, May 9th, from 3:30 to 6:30 PM. See you there!

Update (May 15, 2012): I missed the celebration. Here's a news report and some new photos of the overpass from TucsonNewsNow.com (KOLD/KMSB): Murals showcase Tucson talent, fight tagging.

The Lone Palm

Sounds like a cool place to pull over for a drink along a hot desert road, doesn't it?

Sorry if I got your mouth watering. :) Around the home at 115 E. Alturas is a wall with peaks and saguaro. ’Most every peak has its scraggly saguaro — except one:

I spotted this lonely palm tree between the other saguaro. The photos are from October 4, 2011.

Mural backdrop at 2012 Tucson Festival of Books

If you attended this year's Tucson Festival of Books, you probably saw the six-by-sixteen-foot stage backdrop "Nuestras Raices." I missed the unveiling, so I didn't know until this week that Mel Dominguez painted it. I read about it on her new blog. Here's the story.

Critters on a wall, part 2

Just along the street from my previous post I saw this mural-like address sign on the home at 2002 E. Lee:

But take a closer look at the lower right corner. It's...

...a critter, not a part of the art (at least, not permanently).

I looked down at my camera for a moment — to go to the macro setting, to get another photo — and our friend was gone.

Critters on a wall, part 1

My last couple of posts have been about “critters” (animals. bugs, or, I guess, basically anything alive that's not human). Here's the first of two new posts with more of the same.

I found these along the alley between Adams & Lee, on the sides of the carport for 2050 E. Lee. This kind of discovery is one of the main reasons I like to do mural-hunting on my bicycle.

I took the photos on April 6th.

Maybe a mural, part 32: critters glued on

From time to time, I post a photo of art that might or might not be a mural — depending on how you define “mural.”

The previous post was of critters painted onto a sidewalk and wall. This time, they're bigger, three-dimensional, and made (I think) of plastic:

They're on the wall around 2350 E. Elm... but that's just the address, and you'll find them on the west side of Norton Avenue, just south of Elm. I took the photo on September 29, 2011.

Update (May 16, 2013): There's much more art around the home. You can find photos of some of it, and links to the rest, from the page 2350 Elm Street on TucsonArt.info.

Park Place Chalk Art Festival revisited

Last Sunday, I made a quick visit to see the artists drawing at the Park Place Chalk Art Festival. Then, on Tuesday, I came by on my bicycle around 7:30 AM to see the finished works. There were just a few people around, so (I realized after a few minutes) I could lay down the chain barriers around the bigger works to get better photos.

I'll start with the bigger works along the north side of the mall — and give each artist's name after their work:

Susan Kay Johnson

Audra Cobelis

Cindy Guare

Joshua Woodhall

Katy May Goodson

Jose Ignacio Garcia

Chris Leon (too wide for my camera, so I snapped it in three sections)

Matt Cotten

Martin Quintanilla

Toward the west end were smaller works — mostly, I think, by kids and others who just walked up and started to draw. There were hundreds of them! Here are three that caught my eye:


The long walkway to the mall entrance...

...and a 12-minute HD video. I took it as I walked along the rows of murals above. (If you can't play it from the window below, you can try opening the video directly from YouTube.)

Update (April 11, 2013): The first of three pages of photos of the 2013 Festival are here: Park Place Chalk Art Festival, part 1 of 3.

Park Place Chalk Art Festival

Though it was a busy weekend for me (Tucson Artists' Open Studios and a great concert by the Southern Arizona Symphony), I stopped by Park Place Mall for a quick look at the inaugural Chalk Art Festival. What a crowd — of both spectators and artists!

I've heard that the murals will be up for the next few days (along the north side of the mall, west from the Sears store). So I decided to come back and try to catch some better photos.

As I was about to leave, I saw a familiar artist's name. Cindy Guare had just contacted Randy last week to let us know that she painted the God's hands mural as well as the amazing Girl Scout mural. The scout mural took an entire year to paint, she told me yesterday.

If you'd like to see more of Cindy's work, her website is CindyGuareArt.com. And there are more photos (and a video) of the entire show in our next post, Park Place Chalk Art Festival revisited.

Quiet at the Rialto

On March 22, we were following the continually-changing murals on the east side of the Rialto Theatre downtown. The latest of the three was for a Todd Rundgren concert on April 1.

Three days ago — April 11th — there was just one new mural (Joe painted it, by the way) for a get-together at the Tucson Museum of Art on April 7:

I'll keep riding by from time to time and see what happens!

A peacock and (much) more, part 2

Tuesday's post showed a forest scene, including a peacock, on a wall wrapped around a Tucson home. Today's post is from Reid Park. Here's the peacock in front of the Zoo entrance. Titled Pavo cristatus (the scientific name — appropriate for a zoo, eh?) it's © 2003 by Nina Borgia-Aberle and Stephen Grede. I waited in line to take my photo while kids sat on the peacock and their parents snapped shots. It might not exactly be a mural (the feathers count; the head probably doesn't) but it's part of the public-art scene in this central Tucson park.

Across the way, the Edith Ball Adaptive Recreation Center has ceramic murals — and a very fun ceramic non-mural near the pool. Let's start with the shelter along the road, just east of the building entrance:

The plaque at the left side has the mural’s text in Spanish and Braille:

Inside, around a drinking fountain, is Tranquilidad en el agua / Calmness in the water, by Nina Borgia-Aberle in 2004:

As you walk into the locker rooms, you'll see The ocean’s garden / El jardin del oceano, by Nina Borgia-Aberle & Stephen Grede in 2004. (As always, you can click on that plaque for a larger view.) Here's the mural overall...

...and each panel closer-up:

This sculpture by the pool definitely isn't a mural, but I couldn't leave it out. I didn't catch its name or the artist name(s). I just found the web page What's the difference between a crocodile and an alligator? and decided that it's a dancing... crocodile. (If you know more, please send me an email or leave a comment below.)