Banda Calaca murals

I'm glad to say that we have a backlog of mural photos again. So I'll be posting mural photos twice a week now (and the occasional “newsy” post like yesterday’s).

Mark Fleming snapped photos of two murals on the freestanding wall outside the Tucson Museum of Art's Education Center. First the south side, then the north:

And a couple of close-ups:

The murals are by Danny Martin.

The exhibition, Banda Calaca: Installation by Hank Tusinski, is very fun. It's up through January 3, 2016. (And don't miss the painted exhibition board with two cutouts for two peoples' faces. No room for a selfie stick, though… you'll need to ask someone else — another friend, or one of the friendly docents — to snap the photo.)

Thanks to Mark for helping create the backlog of mural photos. ;-) No, really: I probably won't be posting murals everyday like we did in years past, but now you'll get your “mural fix” twice as often as you have recently.

And speaking of thanks: Best wishes, everyone, for a happy and artistic Thanksgiving! More murals Monday.

Graffiti Art at Arizona State Museum

Here's a story by Andrea Kelly of Arizona Public Media: Graffiti Art at State Museum Shows Evolving Culture. The project, called Neoglyphix, will be up through the end of this month.

On your walk back from Nogales, Sonora...

…if you leave through the little crossing for pedestrians only, you'll be greeted by this trompe-l'œil mural:

It's on the south wall of Kory's bridal shop. This is on the International Avenue side of Kory's, directly across from the border wall. I took the photo on April 24th.

[If you drive or take a shuttle to Nogales, Arizona and walk through the big pedestrian/car crossing, here's how to get to the pedestrian-only crossing. It's open during the daytimes: right now, 10am-6pm. (I've also made a Google Map of the Mexican part of the route.) Walk a little ways into town, then walk east across the tall railroad overpass. On the other side of the tracks, walk south a bit, cross the street and cut into the little street Plutarco Elias Calles. It runs past the elegant La Roca restaurant; a few blocks north, you'll be at the pedestrian crossing. I've never seen more than a few people in line, so it's much faster than walking through the main crossing. Once you cross back into the US, admire that mural. Then walk west, up the stairs along the US Customs building, and down the stairs at the west side. You're back where you entered Mexico; the shuttles to Tucson and the parking lots are right there.]

Murals being made (not finished), part 30b

As I wrote last time, we left the mural in March. I wrote to the muralist, Jason Cross, once more a while after we'd been in touch, but I haven't heard anything since. That's been eight months ago, and I haven't seen any changes in the mural for months now. This week, the mural looked the same as it had in a few snapshots I grabbed back on May 31st. So I decided to take some detailed photos a few days ago — November 8th — and post them here. If something changes from now on, I'll post Part 30c (at least!).

Here's the whole mural from the south end, at Calle Cortez:

And now the whole mural, piece by piece, from left (south) to right (north). The white spots on some photos are from sunlight hitting the camera lens:

That last panel is about twice as tall as the others: the mural covers part of the building instead of just the wall along the street.

Update (February 16, 2018): The third part of this series is in today's entry Murals being (not quite) made, Part 30c.

Murals being made, part 30a

Every so often, I'll come across an artist working on a mural, or I'll hear that one is planned. So I ask the artist if it'd be okay to take photos of the mural in progress as well as when it's finished. That happened on March 7, when I drove by a muralist with paint cans and rollers along Alvernon a bit north of Broadway. Of course, I pulled over to ask if I could snap a few photos. No problem, he told me. His name was Jason Cross:

This was his very first mural. I gave him my card and asked him to send email when he was ready to paint more. As it turned out, I couldn't make that day (March 15th)… but I said I'd roll by later and snap some photos.

The mural was farther along but not finished. Here's a view of the whole wall, then photos of the center and right (north) end:

More — from much later — next time.

Maybe a mural, part 65: Citizens Warehouse

The railroad tracks cross 6th Avenue and 9th Street near the southwest corner of the Citizens Warehouse building. The building is full of artist studios. (And, from what I've seen so far in the plans, it won't be torn down for Downtown Links.)

Near that corner are three works of art. Two of them aren't exactly murals, which is why I've made this entry part of our “maybe a mural” series. Let's look from left to right (west to east). First, a painted fence with a “robot” on top; next a mural, partly in shade, by Michael Schwartz (see the note at the end of this entry); and a painted window hung off the second-floor wall:

I was there on April 21st, 2015.

Update (February 5, 2017): The second photo above, of Michael Schwartz’ mural, was chopped off and had poor color. I found a better version that I took on May 14, 2016. I've replaced the second photo.

Ft. Lowell crossing Alamo Wash

Driving Ft. Lowell Road east of Swan, you'll cross the bridge over Alamo Wash. Along with the guardrails, there are murals along the bridge. From southeast to northwest clockwise:

The first shows the wall; I cropped the other two to just the mural. The photos are from April 18th. The artist was Robin Riley, 2011.

Slower posts for a while (but maybe not?)

I've been getting a welcome flow of murals, from a couple of contributors, that've let me add new entries to this blog twice a week: Mondays and Thursdays. But I'm running low enough on murals to post that I'm going to drop back to once a week for a little while… a short while, I hope!

(I'll also add news clips, etc. — like Tuesday's video and clip of Joe Pagac — when I find them.)

If you find a mural photo, I'd be glad to get it! You don't need to worry about making it technically perfect. Just tell me (approximately) where and when you took it. Old photos are welcome, too! The mural must be somewhere visible to the public (it can't be inside a home or in a restaurant you have to pay to get in). Just email me through the TucsonArt.info contact form and I'll send you back instructions for emailing it.)

Thanks, and please stay tuned!

Joe Pagac paints the Rialto

On Sunday 10/18 at 9:23pm, @JoePagac tweeted the link to a video by Julie Luchetta, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V6JtBNo4TkM&feature=youtu.be&a, showing him painting one of his many murals of music groups. Along the way he talks with friends and people passing by. He also has time for some beer (I think?). It's a fun video. Click on the photo still or the link above to watch it.

Near Richey Elementary

One of the reasons I'm glad to have David Aber's help on this blog is that he goes to places I haven't. Here's an example. The mural is across 15th Avenue from Richey Elementary — on the east side of 15th Avenue, just south of Rillito Street. He wrote “I assume that the mural was painted by students from Richey.”

My (usual) thanks, Dave.

Flowing Wells Public Library

As David Aber was driving along West Wetmore, he spotted a tile mural on an outside wall of the library:

The camera data says that he took it on September 16th. (He sent it the same day. Thanks for the quick work!)