“The initial idea behind the Tucson Murals Project was to complement Tucson's Downtown redevelopment. It seemed to me that the city was leaving out a great idea for Tucson tourism: a map for tourists to drive and find Tucson's beautiful wall-size pieces of art.”He passed away in 2013. (I hope we're doing you proud, Randy.) There's lots of info about him — though with many links out of date — in the post Farewell, Randy....
In today's 15th-anniversary edition, I'll take you through the 15 most popular posts from the past 10 years. (Blogger's statistics don't cover 15 years.) If a post has more than one photo, I'll choose one; you can click on the link underneath each photo to see all of the photos in the post — actually, all of the post.
Let's start with an exact copy of the first post — July 12, 2006. Note that, in this screenshot, the links don't work.
(If you'd like to see the 10th anniversary post mentioned above, click here: Ten years of Tucson murals.)
Now, the most-viewed posts, starting with the most popular. After each photo is a link to the actual post. After you click on that link, use the "back" button or arrow on your browser or phone to come back here.
#1: Tucson Murals Project's 50th Posting!
This is the north side of the famous Hippie Gypsy store on 4th Avenue:
July 21, 2008: Tucson Murals Project's 50th Posting!
#2: Early mural by Luis Gustavo Mena
Luis Mena has been painting (and sculpting and …) for decades in Tucson. This mural of Benito Juarez is dated August 18, 1981:
#3: 6,000 Tucsonans in the 4th Avenue underpass
The Tucson Portrait Project took the photos of 6,000 Tucsonans. The plan was to make them into a series of murals lining the underpass, but the project ran out of money: |  |
#4: Ford Elementary
The mural is/was on a stand-alone wall on a (mostly) unused lot in the back of the school:
#5: Storage Shed at Smitty's
There are/were two murals on a storage shed at Smitty's Car Wash. Here's one: |
| UFT (Unidentified Flying Taco) |
November 9, 2016: Storage Shed at Smitty's
#6: Little Germany Foreign Car Repair
The front of the store has/had a full-width mural:
#7: Feldman's Neighborhood
Feldman's is a National Historic District:
#8: Victor's Upholstering
The mural is behind a fence, but David Aber was able to get in:
#9: Beep Beep
At the end of the driveway of a private home, Wile E. Coyote and the (beep beep, or maybe meep meep) Road Runner:
#10: Rincon High
Of all the schools David Aber had visited by this point, Rincon High had the largest mural by far:
February 15, 2017: Rincon High
#11: !*?%&#= TAGGERS!!
A tagger trashed Joe Pagac's name on the huge Epic Rides mural that took three months of work:
#12: Ben Maestas
Joy Maestas sent photos of murals by her son Ben Maestas in their back yard. All four murals are completely different — and very good. Here's the first section of wall:
#13: Joe Pagac's Borderlands Brewing mural
One of Tucson's biggest murals, it's filled with Western vistas and humans in animals' bodies. Click on the link for the blog post to see lots of close-ups.
#14: Electrifying art ("artifying" electricity?)
A number of electric substations around Tucson have murals. Here's one:
#15: Jos wraps (up) Good Ole Tom's: murals being made, part 18
This is part of a long series showing Jos Villabrile wrapping the building in murals:
There are more than a thousand other murals on the blog. If you're new here, have a look around! There's an introduction, tips for getting around, and some history too, in the page About this blog.
I'm aware that this blog isn't easy to see on mobile phones. I'm hoping to fix that in the next year or so.
Stay tuned for the next fifteen years!
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