Murals being made, part 14: WintaFresh 2013

This year's urban art extravaganza was February 2nd at the usual place: the lot just south of Und1sputed Fitness at 1240 N. Stone. Before the day of painting started, last year's work was covered with a plain coat, ready for the artists. The walls are divided into areas where a single artist — or, in some cases, several artists working together — create something new.

Before the photos, here's a video I shot to give you an idea of the scene. The camera is hand-held, and the video is unedited, but at least it has stereo sound!



(You can also view that video on the YouTube website. And here's an audio slideshow featuring T.H.K., a Tucson graffiti crew.)

Now, on to the photos.

Update (January 7, 2014) Mark Fleming came back to shoot photos of some new murals here in WintaFresh 2013 revisited.

What Winta Fresh 2013 painted over...

... was (mostly) created during Winta Fresh 2012. (If you haven't heard of Winta Fresh, here's our recent post about it. You can also use the search box at the right side of this blog.)

On January 23, I decided to walk along the length of the empty lot (just south of Und1sputed Fitness at 1240 N. Stone) and snap photos all along the two walls. These are mostly unedited, but I hope they'll help to preserve the art that was replaced on February 2nd.

Here's the north wall (the south wall of the gym) from the east end:

and the same wall from the west end:

Now, from west to east along that wall:

I couldn't help photographing the man at the bottom of that last photo (an exhausted art lover, I guessed, overwhelmed by so much creativity :). Homeless, down and out, or whatever he was, it felt wrong to leave him as a speck there, so I snapped a closeup (with my zoom lens) and I've blurred his face here:

Back to the northern wall — the eastern half:

Now the south wall. Here's a view from the west (right) side:

And the south wall murals, starting at the left (east) side... these works are a lot smaller than the north wall, so there are more to photograph:

If you painted any of these in 2012 and would like to tell us about what you painted (you can stay anonymous if you'd like), you can leave a comment below. Please tell us the number of the photo — which you can get by hovering your mouse over the photo, and a caption like “Click for a larger view of photo 19” should pop up. (If your work has been trashed by taggers, and you have a better photo, please email it to me and I'll add it.) Thanks!

If any of you artists or readers want any originals, let me know. As always, I've kept high-resolution copies of every photo; I'd be glad to share the ones you need — and clean them up first, as I do for most other photos on this blog. To make time for posting the Winta Fresh 2013 photos, I didn't edit most of these.

Bus mural near Machu Picchu

If you're in the Peru's Valle Sagrado (Sacred Valley) near Machu Picchu (as I am — which is why I'm not posting so many murals right now), you'll likely pass by the terminal terrestra (bus station) in the city of Urubamba. Look on the wall at the end of the parking lot and you'll see:

(By the way, if you've flown into Cusco, coming straight to Urubamba can be a good way to acclimate to the high altitude... Urubamba is much lower altitude, and it's beautiful too.)

Murals being (re-)made, part 13: Plush parking lot

Polar bear! This new mural caught my eye as I rode by the parking lot for Plush — just east of 5th Avenue and south of 6th Street — on January 20th. (It's in the middle of the parking lot's north wall.) When I rode in, I saw several people painting murals... actually, painting over murals already there. (You can see the parking lot as it was on March 27 and April 16, 2012 in Surrounded by murals: our 700th post.) I can't figure out the name at the left side (if you can, please leave a comment below!), but the name on the right is CyFi, a.k.a. the well-known Tucson muralist Rock Martinez.

They told me the polar bear was finished recently, but that they were doing more. (You can see the first photo of this crew at the end of our May 25, 2011 entry.) Here's the crew — and one of the spectators:

Rock Martinez (CyFi) and Aspir painted the mural. Here are CyFi's photos.

Here's one more. It (which looks to me like a prescription pill bottle) was added after the black background (and the mural at bottom) were painted some time before. I'm not sure if this crew added it or if it was added earlier:

I've been back since to re-photograph the whole parking lot. There's such a backlog of mural photos now that I'll wait to post those. (If you can't wait, stop by the parking lot yourself!)

Decorated archways

A lot of Tucson homes have a garland of flowers or plants on stuccoed walls — usually around windows or entrance doors. So we won't show all of them. Here's an example from 1817 E. 10th Street:

I was there on March 24, 2012.

Update (February 5, 2014): Terri Vasquez wrote recently to say that “The artist is Chris Serafini. He is a local teacher and coach.” and “I was working on a rust staining project on the walkway at the time you took the photo.”

Thanks for filling us in, Terri!

Saguaro tops

These bottomless saguaro are on the east wall of Net Zero Solar, at the corner of 9th Avenue and 5th Street (101 W. 5th). I found them on December 2nd.

Murals being made, part 12: Tasteful Kitchen

On October 21, 2012, I posted a photo of the south wall of The Tasteful Kitchen, 722 N. Stone.

I drive by fairly often. On January 23rd, I saw a finished mural:

It looks pretty different from the sketch that was on the wall in September (when I took the photo that appeared in the October entry).

Update: Rock Martinez painted the mural. Here are photos from Rock's website on January 21.

Chicago Store murals gone for good?

The Chicago Store, at 130 E. Congress, for years has had music inside and outside. Inside — as Mayor Jonathan Rothschild said in an interview (see below), the store “buys, sells, rents, trades and repairs all sorts of instruments from kazoos to pianos.” On two of the three outside walls were murals of musicians (photos above and below), of a Tucsonan who died tragically (far too young), as well as a couple of murals in an urban-art style:

	May 9, 2008
	November 23, 2008
	May 29, 2009

When I saw that the building was being refaced, I watched for news of changes. The facade was cleaned, and I waited. A few weeks ago, I found this story on DowntownTucson.org:

Façade Improvement Restores the Pride of 1903 in Chicago Store Building

I rode by the store last week. The walls are Quite White (actually, a light shade of beige or salmon).

The murals were fading, I guess... murals do change... and I understand that people who don't love art like this could have seen the building as an “eyesore.” Tucson moves on. Still — and especially in the story of McKenzie — we've lost a special place to “Façade Improvement.”

Winta Fresh 2013 is Saturday February 2!

On Sunday the 20th, I rode by the amazing mural-lined parking lot for Plush. (You can see it in our October 29, 2012 post.) Around ten people were there painting or watching. I mentioned that this scene looked like the WintaFresh space on North Stone. One of them told me that this year's WintaFresh is coming soon: Saturday the 2nd.

I searched online and found a Tucson Weekly calendar article confirming the date and time (11am - 4pm) and calling this year's event “Tucson's fifth annual Graffiti Expo.” The artist I talked to said that painting costs $50; you get some cans of paint and a space that's yours.

The article says this is “a mural incorporating the work of more than 50 Tucson artists,” but I think that may not be quite true. From what I've understood before — and from another of the artists I talked with on Sunday — these are artists from all over the country who come to Tucson just for this event.

I have a feeling that the 50 artist slots are already taken, but that you can pay $5 to watch it happen. If you can't make it, I'm going to try to be there... expect a full report here on the blog soon after. :)

That's one of the many murals from WintaFresh 2011. If you'd like to see other WintaFresh art, look for 1240 N. Stone in the North of Downtown section of the table of murals.

Update (February 3, 2013): I've uploaded WintaFresh 2013 video (hand-held, unedited, stereo sound) to the TucsonArtInfo YouTube channel.

Have some extra white paint?

Image from pixabay.com

Sometime in February, I'll help to paint a new Tucson mural. (You'll see the story here, of course!) We'll need flat white latex acrylic paint as the base coat (the primer).

If you have some to spare, please either send me email or call me at 520-302-4402. Your paint will be the foundation for part of the Tucson mural scene. Thanks!

Murals for sale (restaurant included)

OK, I admit that I've used a title like that before. Anyway, the former Farmhouse Restaurant building, 660 N. Ocotillo Road in Benson, was for sale when I drove by on January 10th. The main attraction for art lovers is that it's covered with murals.

Here's a view from the southwest (as always, you can click for a larger view):

And the north side:

Both of the large murals are signed in their lower-right corner:

- GORMAN -
2007