Wintafresh is an annual event in the lot south of Und1sputed Fitness at 1240 N. Stone. You can see (and hear) last year's event in our post Murals being made, part 14: WintaFresh 2013.
Mark Fleming visited the lot and sent four photos on October 25th:
Back on May 20th, 2013, I was on one of my early-morning bicycle rides (I get up earrrllyy during that warm time of the year) and passed by the home at 2520 N. Fontana. The porch had handpainted murals...
As you drive east on 6th Street, it's hard to miss the mural on the west side of Mansfield Middle School:
(I don't bicycle on 6th: no shoulder, lots of rough pavement! I was in my car when I pulled over to take this photo on December 6, 2012. This view is actually from the 400 block of Mountain Avenue between 6th & 7th Streets.)
I'm back into my archives. This photo is more than a year old — December 12, 2012 — so I wonder if the mural is still there?
It was on the east wall of Maui Smoke Shop, 1099 E. Broadway. (For a map, click the "Location" link below.) If you spot it — or spot a different mural there instead — please leave a comment below or let me know.
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...
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.
One of my New Year's resolutions is to have a more-balanced life. In the past year, I've been stretched too thin. I used to post murals every day. Then I added the mailbox blog, then Tucson's Pocket Parks, began ramping up TucsonArt.info... and again started volunteering as event photographer at the amazing Tucson Museum of Art. Since Randy passed away in March, I've been the only contributor. Plus, I've gotta do my job... and ride my bike (to find more art)... and sleep! ;-)
I've decided to try posting more mural photos but editing them less. (I used to spend most of my time making the color as close to perfect as I could, fixing distracting bright spots, straightening tilted edges and "barrel distortion" (which many digital cameras have these days: straight lines are curved out like a barrel), etc. I'll add less "backstory" and explanation. I hope it'll let me get back to posting a mural per day. (My pile of photos now stretches back to October of 2012!)
Jerry
P.S. I'm always glad for comments. Please feel free to add one below. (And if you're interested in being a co-contributor, please drop me a line!
Mark Fleming must've gone by when the fence was open (or maybe he has a really great lens? :). On October 6 of this year, he sent me four close-up photos. As always, Mark, thanks.
This photo shows an end of the building, I think:
These next four are of the north side, I believe. (My previous post showed the south and west sides.) The first is an overview; the rest show details:
By the way, I have more photos of other murals from Mark. They'll be here soon.
From time to time, I post a photo of something that you might or might not call a mural. This one isn't really flat or on a wall, so it's probably not quite right for this blog. Still, it fit well with today's post on the Tucson Mailbox Art blog.
The Search this Blog box at the right-hand edge of every page used to do a much better job of finding murals. (For instance, I used to be able to type Elm and find a mural on Elm Street.) No more.
So I've added a new “Search the blog” box to the Murals in Tucson page. You can also get that search box by clicking on Finding murals (Better than Search box above!) at the right-hand edge of every page.
(By the way, here's the mural I was looking for:
It's from our May 16, 2013 post Maybe a mural, part 46: Exquisite on Elm. If you have a look at our Christmas morning post, you'll see why I was looking for this...)
Classes are out for the holiday break, but I'll try to find photos and post them here! If you have any photos — or any leads — please let me know.
PS: I've been super-busy these past few months. There just hasn't been time to post many mural photos. I'm hoping to break away a day, soon, to post a lot of the backlog of photos. Please check back!
Update (December 20, 2013): I just called the school to ask if I could take photos of the murals before they're gone. After checking around, the person I spoke with said that wouldn't be possible. She did say that a slideshow would (eventually) be posted on the school's website. (There's a link above.) Sigh...
On October 21st, on the blog Tucson's Pocket Parks, I posted photos of a wonderful street-side spot in the art-filled Dunbar/Spring neighborhood: Sit on a Gila Monster, share a book. I was so taken by the scene that I didn't notice a mural on a cistern (rainwater harvesting tank) next to the nearby home:
The blog entry I mentioned has more photos. This (typically) amazing public-art scene is in the art-filled Dunbar/Spring neighborhood, at the northwest corner of 10th Avenue and 2nd Street. I discovered it thanks to a heads-up from Natasha at Originate (a fabulous natural building materials store not far away).
I do a lot of traveling (though not as much as I used to...). When I go, I look for art. (You can try searching the Internet for something like mural Phoenix.)
One street art icon that I never got to see was 5Pointz in New York City:
(As always, you can click for a larger view.)
Today I read a tweet from the Arizona Arts Commission @AZartscomm:
There's been a lot of talk about 5Pointz this week. What do you think? Lost art or graffiti? http://fb.me/PnDVtnnJ
As I've traveled back and forth (and back and forth...) to New Mexico this autumn — which is a lot of why I haven't been posting many murals, by the way — I got an idea. I'd ask readers of this blog (that's you! :) to choose their favorite murals.
I just made the new page called "Favorites". You can see it by clicking there (on its name) — or by clicking on the page title in the "Pages" section at the top right-hand corner of any page on the blog.
Enjoy! And please feel free to vote for yours. (As you'll see, there are instructions for "voting" at the top of the Favorites page.)
Mark Fleming has been outdoing himself recently, sending me lots of new murals to post. This one is a new mural on 5846 East Speedway, Head Hunter Smoke Shop. (For a Google Map, click at the bottom of this entry, next to "Location".)
I think I may have photographed an earlier mural there but haven't posted it yet. If it's in my backlog of murals to post, you'll see it here eventually!
Though this blog is the Tucson Murals Project, from time to time we've shown murals somewhere outside Tucson — such as Randy's 2009 post from Baghdad, Iraq.
During my August visit to New Mexico, I drive through Deming. Then I drove to the village of Hatch. I also took some photos. First, though, a story.
To New Mexicans and other chile lovers), Hatch is famous for its fields of chile — and the endless number of establishments selling chile (in all forms — including delicacies like chile-shaped Christmas lights :) to travelers as well as locals. To other travelers, Hatch is a shortcut between Interstate 10 heading east and I-25 headed north (and vice versa). I passed through Hatch for both reasons: I grew up in New Mexico, so I'm a chile addict... and I was headed that way, so I took the convenient shortcut road between Deming and Hatch to save an hour or so of driving.
But this blog is actually about murals. :) Let's see some!
As I drove eastbound on NM 26 (along the portion that uses Hall Street), I spotted this mural on the front side of what looked a bit like an abandoned building:
That mural was just north of the corner where you turn left to continue eastbound (this time, in an easterly direction) on NM 26. I took the turn... and pulled over right away. What a scene!
Hatch has discovered “fun” art: murals, sculpture... it lined both sides of Franklin Street, from this corner east. Then there's the back the northeast corner) of Sparky's:
I'm showing only the corner of Hall and Franklin. If you like this kind of art, you'll Have Fun in Hatch! (And avoid Sparky's at lunchtime, if you can. When I was there, at least — as you can see from the photo above — it was jammed with hungry people.)
The building at 191-197 East Toole (at the corner with 6th Avenue, just south of the SPRR tracks) is full of creative people... and some of them like to paint. Some of them like to paint extraterrestrials (a.k.a. “aliens”). The northwest side of the building (on the Skrappys end, facing the parking lot) has always had an E.T. theme — as in the photos from May 25, 2009 and the second photo posted on May 1, 2010.
Then there's the side by the tracks. On May 25, 2010, I posted photos of the side by the tracks (the northeast side) —and just around the corner, on the south end of the east side. Thanks to a heads-up (and some new photos; see below) from super-mural-finder Mark Fleming, I came back to check out the north side on October 3rd. Here are two views from my not-too-happy cell phone camera (which didn't like the sun glaring in its little lens… and the lens was dirty, too):
Here are two of Mark's photos:
Thanks, Mark!
Update (December 31, 2019): The right-hand side looks almost identical six years later, but the mural at the left is ruined. Today's entry has a photo.
I'm on my latest trip to New Mexico (which is one reason I haven't been posting to this blog… the other is that I've been really busy). Anyway, I just looked back at the previous entry, More about the Swanway Park mural, and noticed that I hadn't included the photos of the community artists painting the mural.
Click there (or scroll down, if you're on the blog's front page) to have a look!
On Monday, Allison happened to be at Bentley's (where she painted a mural based on the movie E.T.… by the way, I took a new and more-evenly-lit photo of the mural. I've just replaced the second photo on that mural page with the shot I took Monday.) She walked over to say hello and mention that the Swanway Park mural was actually a community project. She emailed me two photos:
This is a photo of the “Greetings from Tucson” mural on 1st St. & Arcadia (located in Swan Way Park on the back wall of Flooring Direct). The mural was done to beautify the park... because the wall was consistently a target for graffiti. Pittsburgh Paint (previously located on Swan) generously donated all the paint, and Lowe’s (Speedway & Kolb) donated paintbrushes. Lead Artist Allison Miller hosted a community paint day in collaboration with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Tucson. The mural was completed in August, 2012 and was inspired by the historic “Greetings from Tucson” postcard.
Allison's latest project is to organize a community mural for the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. If you’re interested in participating, call her at 520-883-3071.
Thanks so much, Allison!
Update (March 21, 2015): Here's a photo that I took earlier today of (almost) all of the mural with (almost) no tree in front of it:
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Jerry Peek's images are public-domain. For non-profit use, he'd appreciate a mention of his name and JerryPeek.com. For profit, please ask first from the contact form above; give the title of the blog entry, which image, and what you'd like to do.
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(Jerry is a volunteer who loves to show you murals, and your kindness will help him go on.) Thanks for reading!
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