Murals in Montevideo

I like to travel, and I like murals. Since you're reading this, you probably like murals too — even if they aren't in Tucson. So here's a look at a few murals in the creative city of Montevideo, Uruguay. The streets have a lot of graffiti; some of it I'd call urban art and others, well, tagging…

A wise owl next to the entrance of
Centro Residentes de Artigas, San Jose 885

Ostriches, I think, along Juan Carlos Gómez
seen from the corner of Piedras

A Cutcsa bus

Recycling bins painted in the style of
the late Uruguayan artist José Gurvich

Tango dancers, what else? (Tango started here.)

I took the photos July 25th.

Pescaderia y Taqueria Yami

The mural at this Mexican seafood restaurant on South Fourth Avenue was painted by Jilmar Alaniz.  Photographed on May 27, 2019.

Cowboy Riding a Swordfish

Here's a closer view.

I believe the cowboy is a self-portrait of the artist.

Click on either photo for larger and sharper views.

Quick Rialto mural tour

Before the downtown construction boom of the past few years, it used to be easy to see the ever-changing concert murals on the east side of the Rialto Theatre. Since a building went up close to the murals, now there's just an alley. To see the murals from a car, you really need to get out and walk. In case you haven't been there, here's a quick tour.

I snagged this photo while I was stopped in traffic on Congress January 19th:

Once you're on foot, you'll see the Prince mural that's on the wall permanently — as well as the latest concert mural(s):

Joe Pagac's little man and monkey are at the right edge of the photo above.

Wildlife on Country Club

This mural is in front of a home at the corner of Arroyo Chico — a place you're likely to see wildlife:

A couple of details:

I was there on April 14th.

Back of the Lost Barrio

The Lost Barrio is a shopping area along Park Avenue south of Broadway. If you come in on 12th Street from Euclid or Tyndall, you'll see the back side of the buildings. It's a funky scene: a dirt parking lot with a bunch of old doors and a couple of murals (maybe more, or others, by the time you see this).

If you'd like a Google satellite map with a pin in front of the wall, click there.

Here's the door at the right end of the first photo above… photos of the mural are next:

The first, second, third and fifth photos above are from January 2, 2019. Photos 4 and 6 are from January 19.

Gerardo Olmedo, the owner of Lost Barrio Gallery — the store behind the mural — sent me this photo on April 16th of Salvador Duran in front of his mural:

Danny Martin Art

Danny Martin has two small murals near downtown Tucson that have not appeared in this blog.  Both were photographed on 3/14/2019.  Here they are:

South side of Etherton Gallery (of photography)

at 135 South Sixth Ave.

Camera Lady

25 West Simpson St.
Must be viewed from Stone Ave. down an alley.

"Peggy Sue"

Click on either photo for larger and sharper images.

Murals being (re-)made, part 52: Anita Market

The Anita Street Market has had murals on its north wall since at least 2009 — which is when I took this photo on May 14th:

(It's from the blog entry Murals in (on) store.)

Since then, the left (east) side of the mural has been repainted; the right-side mural was also freshened up. Let's start with photos of the completed mural… I took them on May 15, 2019. After these are photos of the new murals being painted.

Next, the murals being repainted on August 22, 2018. In the second photo, you can see that they've kept the man holding the moon and the sun in his hands from the older mural. The last photo shows that the mural had been tagged.

The right-most mural is signed Gino M. on the bottom left corner and Jesus C. on the bottom right.

"Water is Life"

Murals by students from Pima County's Las Artes Program.  Part of the Primavera Foundation's South Tucson Greenway Public Art Project.  The murals depict daybreak, noon and evening but, frankly, I'm not sure I've captioned them correctly.

Found on the back wall of the Capilla Community Garden at W. 34th St. & S. 9th Ave. in South Tucson.  Can only be seen from the Southwestern Greenway.

Photos taken on Feb. 27, 2019.

Evening

Noon

Daybreak

Click on any photo for a slideshow of larger and sharper images.

A history of Joe Pagac's little man on the Rialto

I've been working again on my never-ending project: sorting through a backlog of photos I've taken. I found a folder that I made some time ago — but never posted here, I think. It shows a man standing to the right side of the murals Joe Pagac has painted and re-painted for at least ten years. The first Rialto mural we showed on this blog — without the man — was photographed December 13, 2009.

I'm sure we didn't get all of his concert murals over the years. The first time I saw the “little man” (as I call him) was April 14, 2012:

Here he is, from 2012 through 2018:

	April 14, 2012
	May 18, 2012
	March 6, 2013
	December 25, 2013
	December 21, 2014
	March 7, 2015
	July 27, 2018

After a while, Joe replaced the protest sign with a monkey and the man both holding onto a banana. (Notice how both the man and the monkey have a hand or two wrapped around the downspout?) Though I haven't checked this year, I'd guess that's still the way it looks. The shrubbery in the last photo was taken away sometime later.

Kiss of Smoke

Kiss of Smoke is a barbecue restaurant on S. Plumer that opened Jan. 5, 2019 next door to the Silver Room. The owners have entered barbecue competitions for a decade. They had a food truck for about a year before they decided to open a brick-and-mortar.

I took this photo on Feb. 4, 2019.

Painted by Jonny Ballesteros, aka Jonnybubonik

There's an identical mural on the front of the restaurant.

Click on the photo for a larger and sharper image.

New KVOA-TV video: painting new Palo Verde Pool mural

Four students are working with muralist Isaac Caruso on a new mural that'll be dedicated at the end of the month:



To see the video on the YouTube website, click there.

Daily Wildcat story on Joe Pagac's latest mural

The story about Joe's new whales mural was published Monday, July 8th:

UA Alumnus Paints Tucson's Largest Mural

It's on the north wall of the former Catalina Cinemas building, behind what was a Bookmans location until it was torn down.

Murals being (re-)made, part 51: Fantasy Comics

Somehow we (I hope! :) haven't posted the murals at Fantasy Comics. In July of last year, I decided to fix that. I took photos… then forgot to post them.

It turned out to be a good mistake. Since then, I saw a blog with a photo of a Batman mural hidden behind a wall next to the entrance. When I went back to photograph it in May of this year, an artist was in the parking lot touching up the murals. It turned out to be Danny Martin; he's done a lot of other murals around town, too. He told me that he hadn't painted the Batman mural but that he'd done the rest.

The murals did look a bit worn last year. Let's look at those photos, then the same murals being touched up — and the Batman mural.

July 28, 2018

The first detail photo, below, shows a part of the mural off the left edge of the overall photo above:

May 16, 2019

(If you can't see the ladder and Danny in the photo below, you can — as always — click for a slideshow of larger views.)

Rockets Red Glare

Found at Brawley's Restaurant.  They like to decorate the kitchen window for each holiday.

4th of July, 2019 painted by Gorman

Click on the photo for a larger and sharper image.

New Palo Verde Pool mural this July

Here are three tweets from the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona, on Twitter, about a new neighborhood mural at the Palo Verde swimming pool. The dedication is July 25th:

This workforce development, creative project pays the student artists for their work on this mural while supporting their learning about ways in which the arts can enrich our communities. pic.twitter.com/bmOKgLMvZQ

— The Arts Foundation (@artsfoundtucson) July 1, 2019

Please join us to celebrate the work at the Pima Association of Governments (PAG) mural dedication on Thursday, July 25!​​
Thursday, July 25 | 9AM - 9:30AM
Palo Verde Pool
355 Mann Ave | Tucson, AZ 85710 pic.twitter.com/HTSaPuASOK

— The Arts Foundation (@artsfoundtucson) July 1, 2019