Better ways to find murals

The Search this Blog box at the right-hand edge of every page used to do a much better job of finding murals. (For instance, I used to be able to type Elm and find a mural on Elm Street.) No more.

So I've added a new “Search the blog” box to the Murals in Tucson page. You can also get that search box by clicking on Finding murals (Better than Search box above!) at the right-hand edge of every page.

(By the way, here's the mural I was looking for:

It's from our May 16, 2013 post Maybe a mural, part 46: Exquisite on Elm. If you have a look at our Christmas morning post, you'll see why I was looking for this...)

Goodbye, Utterback murals...

Thanks to a tweet from ‏@TucsonWeekly about its article Is An Arts Magnet School Still An Arts Magnet Without Its Trademark Murals?, I did some searching for news about the murals at Utterback Magnet Middle School. That Weekly article — which has a few mural photos — was all the news I found.

A Google Image Search for utterback middle school mural brought up some more photos — including the one I posted here on September 27, 2010:


There's a copy of the letter about the murals on the Utterback website.

Classes are out for the holiday break, but I'll try to find photos and post them here! If you have any photos — or any leads — please let me know.

PS: I've been super-busy these past few months. There just hasn't been time to post many mural photos. I'm hoping to break away a day, soon, to post a lot of the backlog of photos. Please check back!

Update (December 20, 2013): I just called the school to ask if I could take photos of the murals before they're gone. After checking around, the person I spoke with said that wouldn't be possible. She did say that a slideshow would (eventually) be posted on the school's website. (There's a link above.) Sigh...

Look behind the (little free) library...

On October 21st, on the blog Tucson's Pocket Parks, I posted photos of a wonderful street-side spot in the art-filled Dunbar/Spring neighborhood: Sit on a Gila Monster, share a book. I was so taken by the scene that I didn't notice a mural on a cistern (rainwater harvesting tank) next to the nearby home:

The blog entry I mentioned has more photos. This (typically) amazing public-art scene is in the art-filled Dunbar/Spring neighborhood, at the northwest corner of 10th Avenue and 2nd Street. I discovered it thanks to a heads-up from Natasha at Originate (a fabulous natural building materials store not far away).

Goodbye, 5Pointz

I do a lot of traveling (though not as much as I used to...). When I go, I look for art. (You can try searching the Internet for something like mural Phoenix.)

One street art icon that I never got to see was 5Pointz in New York City:

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

Today I read a tweet from the Arizona Arts Commission ‏@AZartscomm:

There's been a lot of talk about 5Pointz this week. What do you think? Lost art or graffiti? http://fb.me/PnDVtnnJ

That tweet ends with a link to a National Public Radio story — written, with more pictures: Remembering 5Pointz: A Five-Story Building That Told Plenty More. (You can also click on the story title to read it.)

That photo above came from the 5Pointz home page, which has a big black space where the photo used to be... as well as pleas for help to save the art.

According to NPR, 5Pointz is set to be demolished by the end of the year to make way for luxury apartments.

Your favorite murals?

As I've traveled back and forth (and back and forth...) to New Mexico this autumn — which is a lot of why I haven't been posting many murals, by the way — I got an idea. I'd ask readers of this blog (that's you! :) to choose their favorite murals.

I just made the new page called "Favorites". You can see it by clicking there (on its name) — or by clicking on the page title in the "Pages" section at the top right-hand corner of any page on the blog.

Enjoy! And please feel free to vote for yours. (As you'll see, there are instructions for "voting" at the top of the Favorites page.)

New Head Hunter (mural)

Mark Fleming has been outdoing himself recently, sending me lots of new murals to post. This one is a new mural on 5846 East Speedway, Head Hunter Smoke Shop. (For a Google Map, click at the bottom of this entry, next to "Location".)

I think I may have photographed an earlier mural there but haven't posted it yet. If it's in my backlog of murals to post, you'll see it here eventually!

Mark sent this one on September 23rd.

Hatch (NM) hijinks

Though this blog is the Tucson Murals Project, from time to time we've shown murals somewhere outside Tucson — such as Randy's 2009 post from Baghdad, Iraq.

During my August visit to New Mexico, I drive through Deming. Then I drove to the village of Hatch. I also took some photos. First, though, a story.

To New Mexicans and other chile lovers), Hatch is famous for its fields of chile — and the endless number of establishments selling chile (in all forms — including delicacies like chile-shaped Christmas lights :) to travelers as well as locals. To other travelers, Hatch is a shortcut between Interstate 10 heading east and I-25 headed north (and vice versa). I passed through Hatch for both reasons: I grew up in New Mexico, so I'm a chile addict... and I was headed that way, so I took the convenient shortcut road between Deming and Hatch to save an hour or so of driving.

But this blog is actually about murals. :) Let's see some!

As I drove eastbound on NM 26 (along the portion that uses Hall Street), I spotted this mural on the front side of what looked a bit like an abandoned building:

Would you like a Google Maps satellite view of Hatch? (it's centered on the corner of Hall and Franklin Streets.)

That mural was just north of the corner where you turn left to continue eastbound (this time, in an easterly direction) on NM 26. I took the turn... and pulled over right away. What a scene!

Hatch has discovered “fun” art: murals, sculpture... it lined both sides of Franklin Street, from this corner east. Then there's the back the northeast corner) of Sparky's:

I'm showing only the corner of Hall and Franklin. If you like this kind of art, you'll Have Fun in Hatch! (And avoid Sparky's at lunchtime, if you can. When I was there, at least — as you can see from the photo above — it was jammed with hungry people.)

Outer space in a strange place

The building at 191-197 East Toole (at the corner with 6th Avenue, just south of the SPRR tracks) is full of creative people... and some of them like to paint. Some of them like to paint extraterrestrials (a.k.a. “aliens”). The northwest side of the building (on the Skrappys end, facing the parking lot) has always had an E.T. theme — as in the photos from May 25, 2009 and the second photo posted on May 1, 2010.

Then there's the side by the tracks. On May 25, 2010, I posted photos of the side by the tracks (the northeast side) —and just around the corner, on the south end of the east side. Thanks to a heads-up (and some new photos; see below) from super-mural-finder Mark Fleming, I came back to check out the north side on October 3rd. Here are two views from my not-too-happy cell phone camera (which didn't like the sun glaring in its little lens… and the lens was dirty, too):

Here are two of Mark's photos:

Thanks, Mark!

Update (December 31, 2019): The right-hand side looks almost identical six years later, but the mural at the left is ruined. Today's entry has a photo.

Beautiful tile work at Santa Cruz River Park

On north Riverside Drive at west Ontario Street, just south of Speedway and west of I-10 (click there for a satellite view and map from Google) is this heartbreakingly beautiful (sorry... :) mosaic work by Community artists and Santa Theresa Tile Works.

The photo at right is one of the pillars in the central plaza. (You can see a photo of the central plaza on today's post Beautiful murals (and walking) at Santa Cruz River Park in the Tucson's Pocket Parks blog.

Below is detail from that photo.

Head west of the Santa Cruz for some great art — and a stroll, too.

I took the photos in 2007.

Update on the Swanway Park mural

I'm on my latest trip to New Mexico (which is one reason I haven't been posting to this blog… the other is that I've been really busy). Anyway, I just looked back at the previous entry, More about the Swanway Park mural, and noticed that I hadn't included the photos of the community artists painting the mural.

Click there (or scroll down, if you're on the blog's front page) to have a look!

More about the Swanway Park mural

On Saturday, we posted a photo from Allison Miller of a postcard-like mural in Swanway Park that, I wrote, was painted by Allison Miller.

On Monday, Allison happened to be at Bentley's (where she painted a mural based on the movie E.T.… by the way, I took a new and more-evenly-lit photo of the mural. I've just replaced the second photo on that mural page with the shot I took Monday.) She walked over to say hello and mention that the Swanway Park mural was actually a community project. She emailed me two photos:

Thanks much for the updates!

New @ 1st & Arcadia

This is a photo of the “Greetings from Tucson” mural on 1st St. & Arcadia (located in Swan Way Park on the back wall of Flooring Direct). The mural was done to beautify the park... because the wall was consistently a target for graffiti. Pittsburgh Paint (previously located on Swan) generously donated all the paint, and Lowe’s (Speedway & Kolb) donated paintbrushes. Lead Artist Allison Miller hosted a community paint day in collaboration with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Tucson. The mural was completed in August, 2012 and was inspired by the historic “Greetings from Tucson” postcard.

Allison's latest project is to organize a community mural for the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. If you’re interested in participating, call her at 520-883-3071.

Thanks so much, Allison!

Update (March 21, 2015): Here's a photo that I took earlier today of (almost) all of the mural with (almost) no tree in front of it:

New on Echols Avenue (in July)

Last month, Mark Fleming sent photos of a new mural on Echols Avenue north of University. The camera data says he took them on July 23rd. Here's a photo of the mural overall, from a distance back:

I haven't seen it yet, but I found the building by using Google's Street View at the intersection of Echols and University. Looking north, I found a blank wall with the same shape (and same ventilator above).

He sent closeups too:

As always: Thanks, Mark!

P.S. This is the 850th post on the Tucson Murals Project. Thanks to everyone who contributes photos... and all of you who follow it, too.

Jos' Good Ole Tom's mural by night

This blog has plenty of photos of the gorgeous set of murals by Jos Villabrille at the new Good Ole Tom’s location just east of Wilmot on Broadway. The most recent photos were by Mark Fleming on August 31st.

A few times I've published photos of murals by night (such as Murals by Moonlight). Yesterday evening I drove by Good Ole Tom’s and saw that the murals were (partly) lit. Here's the east side of the building:

(The lights look brighter in that photo than they do when you're seeing the mural in person.)

Evening at The Presidio

On the south wall of the outdoor Presidio re-creation (officially, it's the Presidio San Agustín del Tucson; you can click there to see the city's official web page), is a long mural showing what the view might have been like there in older times:

(Now — as you can see from the satellite view below — the mural has a parking lot behind it!)

The official address is 133 West Washington, but it covers a big part of the block south of Washington. (You can see a close-up Google Satellite view by clicking there.)

I took this photo near sunset on December 6, 2012. (The gate was closed, but you can see the mural from the street anyway.)

Around the corner at Casa de Ladrillo

When I photographed the “xeriscaping” at 3131 E. Glenn (the photo was posted July 28, 2011), I shot from the east end of the house.

Later — October 16, 2012 — I noticed a little mural on the west end, by the front door:

The ocotillo stalks that the burro might be "carrying" are an artistic way to cover what looks to me like an ugly electrical box next to the door.

Newer near Playground

Back in April, Mark Fleming sent photos of two murals at 272-274 E. Congress by Joe Pagac. On July 20 — according to the data in the photo file, that is — Mark took photos of two different murals in the same spot. The first, between two pillars (walls?) numbered 274 and 272, is titled (in Mark's photo name, at least) A Thing Like Congress St. Doesn't Just Happen Overnight:

Here's the second, just east of the one above:

As you can see (thanks to Mark), the second is by Joe as well as Wendy Van Leuveren.

These are just down Congress from the little park at Congress & Scott (which is the second post on my new Tucson's Pocket Parks blog).

Update (September 29, 2016): I'm sad to write that Wendy Van Leuveren passed away recently. The Tucson Weekly article Remembering Wendy has details (note that some are disturbing).

Maybe a mural, part 48: Doors on Dodge

From time to time, I post a photo of something that you might or might not call a mural. (Some people have stricter definitions than others. On this blog, if it's art and it's generally flat, it probably qualifies.) How about this one?

It's some painted doors and a fence laid along the fence at 2119 N. Dodge, along the north end of the front yard. (Would it be a mural if it were a single piece of wood with painted geometric shapes? I bet it wood — oops, would. :) I rolled by on October 16, 2012.

The previous “maybe” mural was posted June 2nd.

Monet's Muse

As you can read in the first entry on my new blog Tucson’s Pocket Parks, there's a gorgeous mosaic mural around the outdoor dining area at Café à la C’Art. (That's the restaurant on one side of the Tucson Museum of Art grounds, the former first Janos restaurant in Tucson. It's gorgeous inside, too, but we don't show photos of art that isn't open to the public.)

The restaurant was closed when I took these photos on January 16th, and plants were covered against the cold. I'll show these in no particular order... except a plaque with the name of the work and the artist (Monet's Muse by Kathleen Spain, 2010) at the very end.

(And two notes about the quality of the photos: The first photo — of the sculpture — has some perspective distortion; the base of the sculpture isn't tilting “downhill” as it looks here. Most of the photos were taken in open shade during the winter; I've tried to fix the color, but a lot of the color isn't very accurate... so, you'll need to stop by and see this work with your own eyes! :)

Multicolored corner

Whether you're rolling by on a bicycle (as I did on May 11th) or in a car, you can't help but notice this corner:

It's in an art-filled area of town — just behind Tucson High School — at 648 E. 8th Street.

There's a closeup of the mailbox on today's Tucson Mailbox Art posting.