Finessing Frank's

Frank's Auto Refinishing has something you might not expect: wall-to-wall art. I caught the building at sunrise back in 2012.

Mark Fleming stopped by this year and sent photos in September. A lot is the same (though the sides look white instead of a warm color, but that might have been the sunrise)... there's also some new art and signage. Let's look. First, the east side from south to north:

See the differences? The first photo shows a new mural at the left side, some green tube lights around the column, and a bunch of fine print. In the third, Frank has added body shop at the top.

Next, the north side: first all of it, then close-ups from east to west:

The big change here is the gorgeous mural in the last photo. I don't think it was there two years ago!

Thanks for keeping us up to date, Mark.

Ex-BLX

When the BLX Skate Shop was at the corner of 7th and Toole, it kept its corner fun with a changing mural on the 7th Avenue side. Now BLX has moved to 426 E. 7th Street, just off 4th Avenue. And there's a new mural that hasn't changed for months. Unlike the earlier murals — for obvious reasons — this one doesn't say blocks:

Mark Fleming sent the photo in September.

Update (January 12, 2015): There's a mural at the new BLX location but the mural at the old location has been covered over with greenish paint. (I hope you can keep this straight! Art isn't always predictable...)

Street art online

If you can't get enough street art, here are three places online to satisfy your holiday hunger.

Banksy Revisited

Last month, as I was searching for art online, I found the daily blog called Banksy Revisited (named for the famous UK street artist Banksy). It's amazing! You could spend half a day looking at the art in each day's post:

Today's Banksy Revisited front page

To get a link in your mailbox each day, look for the “Subscribe to updates” box at the right side.

Google Street Art

This summer, I ran across an article on the Guardian (a newspaper in the United Kingdom) about a new Google site with thousands of photos of street art:

Google launches online street art gallery to bring global graffiti to anyone

The art is fantastic. So far, most of it is from Paris, London, New York, Manila, and Lisbon. Maybe we can get Google to bring their cameras to Tucson?!

Fatcap

This website lists street art worldwide. Here's the Tucson page:

Fatcap Tucson page

Art(y) school: Davis Bilingual

Here's our third page of murals from this art-filled school. (The first two were Arte para y por los estudiantes and Más de Davis Bilingual School.)

Let's start with a mural on the side of the school:

Next, murals on the left and right sides of a door:

Murals wrapping around a building (maybe the same building as above?). The third through fifth shots show close-ups of the second. In the second and third photos, you can see that the mural includes a picture of itself:

The last photo is signed with David Tineo 10/10/84 and the names of students who worked with him.

I don't know how I missed all of this during my two visits to Davis Bilingual! Thank you, Mark Fleming.

Thanksgiving feast: Sue's Fish & Chips

Sue's Fish & Chips is a South Tucson tradition. What better to show on Thanksgiving Day than food murals?

There are photos of an earlier mural version in our February 2, 2010 entry.

Speaking of Thanksgiving, thanks to Mark Fleming for these photos. He sent them in September.

Update from 2017: There's also a mural behind the store.

Right to Dream Center Murals

I try to keep up with all that the Tucson Arts Brigade does to bring people together and make great art. (If you haven't heard of TAB, check out their website, blog, Facebook page, and Twitter feed.) Last week I read their blog post about the new Safe Park Dream Center murals at Central City Assembly:

Right To Dream Center Murals: Moving towards the Sun

Thanks to TAB and all the people who volunteer with them to make Tucson a more beautiful place (in many ways!).

A vase of flowers and a cat...

...are what I spotted on front of the Cat Hospital of Tucson a year ago, November 25, 2013:

A year ago at the (former) IST

A while back, we published a couple of photos of the International School of Tucson at tne end of 2010. Last year, I rolled by on 1st Avenue and noticed a bunch of multicolored walls — but no school. It turns out the school had moved to 1701 East Seneca. (Here's the IST website.) I snapped a few photos, anyway.

This is the old convenience-store front at 711 Lester St. You can see the 2011 mural in the background:

And their other building in the same area, at 1730 N. 1st Avenue:

I was there on November 28, 2013.

Way out west (or east?)

We don't have many murals from the far east side of town — partly because I almost never go that way on my bicycle. Thanks to David Aber, though, here's a mural on the side of Tucson Pool & Spa:

He wrote: “The mural is old and faded. I had to enhance the photo to bring out as many details as possible.” And there are lots of details! An army of critters, from a spider and a scorpion on up, are looking on jealously — or climbing in! — to join the cowboy in the tank (or is it a spa?):

Great catch, Dave.

Update (March 26, 2021): I found an aerial view from BG Boyd Photography, who sent me a larger version:

Thank you, BG!

Ash Alley (Tucson's Greenwich Village) close-ups

Mark Fleming just pointed out an article on page 47 of the November Zócalo magazine titled Ash Alley: Tucson's Greenwich Village by Steve Renzi.

After World War II, the article says, Tucson grew. New artists and craftspeople needed a place. The area around one-block Ash Alley came to include studios and an outdoor gallery. It even had its own newspaper, the Ash Alley Bugle. Two of the first newcomers to Ash Alley — and the last to leave, in 1977 — were Jack and Sally Petty. Outside Petty's Studio Gallery was a mural that included three smiling frogs.

On December 29, 2008, Randy posted a photo of the mural — but only a rough location. Five years later — January 21, 2014 — I posted another photo with the exact location. Along with this week's email about the Zócalo article, Mark sent along five photos of his own. The date stored along with the images says that he took them on November 9th.

First, the whole mural (what's left of it). Then, close-ups from left to right:

(I edited the second photo to lighten the shadow at top and darken the rest.) Many thanks, Mark!

More mural from CostLess

Last time, we saw Mark Fleming's photos of a great mural by the parking lot at CostLess Auto Parts. But that's not all! He spotted a mural on a wall in the alley just south of the store:

I'm guessing that Mark couldn't step back far enough to catch all of the mural at once. Here are the left and right sides:

Both sides have been tagged. :-(

Great mural at CostLess Auto Parts

A couple of months ago, Mark Fleming (thanks, Mark!) sent photos of a wall at CostLess Auto Parts. It has a new mural. (Here's the old one in 2010.) First, his overall view:

And details:

But there's more! We'll show it next time.

Lots of murals on the Tucson Daily Photo blog!

Last week I came across another blog with Tucson mural photos — lots of them. It's Tucson Daily Photo ~ (with a tilde character on the end).

Not all of the photos are murals. To see only murals, search for the Mural label (you can click there). After you've scrolled through a page of photos, you can see more by clicking “Older posts” at the bottom of that page.

Plenty of murals on Tucson Daily Photo aren't here on Tucson Murals Project — though a few of them may be eventually. Some of those murals are gone now. If you'd like to see the murals that aren't on Tucson Murals Project, here are links. When you click on a link, it should open in a new window or tab; when you close that window or tab, this list should still be here.

1. 16 September 2014: Cowgirl angel (San Xavier)
2. 18 May 2014: Maybe it's not seeing the forest for the trees (Park Place Mall)
3. 06 May 2014: Sad piece of Tucson history (Wildcat School closing)
4. 19 November 2013: Tucson's Freshest, Newest Mural (closeups are coming on Tucson Murals Project)
5. 05 July 2013: At the Corner of 4th and Food (Google Maps shows this as 600 S. 4th Avenue)
6. 17 June 2013: Tucson's own Leonardo (Compass High School)
7. 05 June 2013: The eternal question
8. 14 March 2013: 2 photos: Colorful, loving tributes (Pima Council on Aging)
9. 23 February 2013: Permanent rug (Pima County OneStop Center)
10. 12 November 2012: Garage wisdom (St. Joseph's hospital garage)
11. 11 November 2012: Colorful, cheerful, fun - yes, a hospital! (St. Joseph's hospital)
12. 11 July 2012: Sun stripes (Tucson Village Farm)
13. 07 June 2012: Feel the love (South Tucson)
14. 15 April 2012: Tucson treasure ~ locally brewed beer (Nimbus Brewing Co. on Tanque Verde)
15. 22 October 2011: Three really big black cats (Inez Ford Elementary School)
16. 19 October 2011: Deep in Brazil? Nope ~ Williams Center (Savaya Coffee Bar)
17. 04 May 2011: The wolves are coming to town (Rialto Theatre)
18. 19 January 2011: Tucson folk lore ~ the Iron Door Mine (Rialto Theatre)
19. 10 January 2011: Tucson's shy superhero (Fantasy Comics)
20. 13 October 2010: A rose by any other name (Bookmans)
21. 15 May 2010: Side door to Pair-a-Dice Barbers
22. 03 May 2010: Bookman's Fantasy Murals ~ gone forever
23. 27 February 2010: Street Art ~ or rather...Interstate Hwy Art (I-10 near 22nd St. exit)
24. 28 January 2010: Rest, contemplate, enjoy Tucson's sun (St. Philip's Plaza)
25. 28 January 2010: Walking on fruits, flowers, fish & sunshine (St. Philip's Plaza)
26. 27 January 2010: Luscious planters with luscious plantings! (St. Philip's Plaza)
27. 13 January 2010: Dr Volt's partner in crime ~ the Evil Queen (Bookmans)
28. 12 January 2010: Tucson's Own Evil Wizard lives at Grant & Campbell (Bookmans)
29. 13 October 2009: Tucson's Parthenon & Pinto Bean (Bookmans)
30. 10 October 2009: "X" Marks the Spot ~ Martini time
31. 04 September 2009: Tucson's Ancient Parthenon (Bookmans)
32. 14 August 2009: Tucson's Blood Sport ~ Mr Be-header (Bookmans)
33. 27 July 2009: Tucson's Own Dragon Slayer (Bookmans)
34. 06 July 2009: Brilliant Colors ~ Powerful Message (Mansfield Park)
35. 30 June 2009: These flowers are always in bloom ... (Dunham Elementary School)
36. 29 June 2009: Everyone loves a polka dotted dino (Dunham Elementary School)
37. 15 June 2009: Tucson's Super Girl ~ Mask, Boots, Flute (Chicago Store)

The Tucson Daily Photo blog started on 06 June 2009. Thanks to the author, Website Editor: Wordsmith!

Rolling into BICAS

Since we posted the March 26, 2013 photos of the BICAS building (Bicycle Inter-Community Art and Salvage; their website is bicas.org)
I stopped by again on September 6, 2013. Here's a new mural I found on a piece of wood next to the entrance:

To see more fun art, stop by this coming weekend — November 8-9, 2014 — when BICAS will be part of the annual fall Open Studio Tour.

The web on north 4th

I found this Halloween-like scene on Christmas Day, 2013:

It's the front of the former Johnny Ray's Tattoo & Piercing (which was for lease when I stopped by).

Steinfeld Warehouse revisited (and re-energized)

Back on June 7, 2010, we showed a mural on the west side of the Steinfeld Warehouse, with deep shadows. Here's a softer version from September 28, 2014:

On the north side, along 6th Street, some paste-ups:

Ten years later, the mural in the first photo is standing up to the strong west-facing sun that can fade murals. Here are two detail photos that I took today:

Update (September 2, 2024): Today's post Steinfeld Warehouse workers has many photos of the mural 10 years later. (It's in amazingly good shape.)

Beautifying I-19

Freeways used to be mostly a bunch of asphalt and concrete. But both I-10 and I-19 in Tucson — as well as other parts of Arizona — have started sprouting art. Here's an example from the southbound side of I-19 at the Valencia Road offramp:

There's more art on the northbound side. But stopping along a freeway, taking photos, and then running across to the other side to take more, isn't a great idea... so I have just this one shot. I grabbed it on August 8, 2013 — from a car headed for Nogales, not on my bike!

Behind Borderlands

Just over a year ago — October 18, 2013 — I took some photos around Borderlands Brewing Company, along the tracks at 7th & Toole. Last month — September, 2014 — Mark Fleming sent me an update.

I drove up Toole to see what had changed. The paste-up mural from two years ago had fallen apart; to the left of it was the newer mural Mark photographed:

Here's the close-up that Mark sent:

Update (March 10, 2015) @JoePagac just tweeted a link to an Instagram photo of him repainting part of this wall by the tracks. Just by coincidence, I caught some photos of the whole wall — but without Joe. I'll post those photos, and the completed wall, in the next few weeks.

By the way, you can see more photos of Joe and some of his work at instagram.com/joepagac/.

Update (April 1, 2015): Joe is finished with the mural. I have a copy of a tweet (from Twitter) showing him finishing up: Joe Pagac finishing Borderlands Brewing mural.

Roadrunner's back

Twice over the years, we've shown murals at the Roadrunner Hostel & Inn: July, 2008 and May, 2009. We haven't posted the mural in back, by their little parking lot:

(As always, you can click on the photo for a larger view.)

This is one of a few lost mural photos that I just found. It's from August 7, 2013.

South 6th & Michigan, 2000-2014

First, some good news: Thanks to all of the photos that David Aber and Mark Fleming have been sending me, I'm going to start posting murals twice a week.

Last week, Mark emailed a photo of a mural I recognized. It's on South 6th Avenue, on the southwest corner of a building that's now a beauty shop. We already have photos online of the mural in 2000 and 2010:

Memorial at a tattoo parlor (2000)

In Memory of Crystal (2010)

Here's Mark's photo of the mural this year: