Eller inspiration next to the Rillito

Out for a walk on the south side of the Rillito River, just east of 1st Avenue, I noticed a long mural on the side of a parking lot wall facing the Rillito. Here it is, from left to right (the first one shows my shadow):

I was there near sunset on March 5th. Thanks to Eller (UA) Make a Difference Day 2012.

Murals being made, part 28

Back on May 7th, I posted a photo of what I thought was a complete mural. But when I rode by the mural again on May 13th, the long white area underneath the words and handprints had more words.

So that photo on February 28th wasn't complete. Here's my photo from May 13th:

(I'm re-posting this to fix a mistake in the title. It's part 28, not part 27.)

Tucson scene mural (mostly) whitewashed

The longstanding mural on the wall of the Former Skrappy’s youth center has been replaced by… nothing. Well, almost… the edges of the former mural are still there:

I snapped the photo on May 12th. Let's hope that the mural is replaced with one that's as imaginative!

By the way, the former mural — without some of the embellishment — is in our May 25, 2009 entry.

Mexicayotl murals mostly missing

Back on August 15, 2013, we posted photos by Mark Fleming showing murals pasted on the front of Mexicayotl Academy. The years — and weather — aren't kind to pasted-up murals. I stopped by on April 5th and saw this (mostly) sad scene:

On the roof, I spotted a mural that I'm not sure Mark saw or decided to send to me:

Update: (February 4, 2016): There's a new mural around the corner.

Tagger trashes amazing Dunbar/Spring mural

I'm sad to tell you that one of Tucson's most magnificent murals has been tagged. The mural covers much of the block of 9th Avenue south of University in the art-filled Dunbar/Spring neighborhood. I noticed the damage on April 25th, but I'd forgotten to post it until now. (Maybe I wanted to forget this awful vandalism.)

Let's start with the photo from 9th & University on the May 25, 2008 entry:


Now for a view of the same spot from the opposite side, then a close-up of the lovely tag:

I know that the city hires a contractor to erase tags on places like the blank walls along Aviation Bikeway. But how to erase a tag on a work of art like this? I'm afraid to try to contact artist Susan Kay Johnson — who lives nearby — because I'd guess this destruction makes her even more sad (and furious) than I am.

Majestic mural on Main

David Aber just sent this photo of a tile mural that fills the home's porch from floor to ceiling:

He took the photo on January 26, 2014. Thank you, David!

Hands and stars for public education

Though it's a bit hard to see (click on the photo for a larger view), the longggg mural says “Support public education!!” It was on the north side of Broadway, across from the corner with Bryant Avenue, on February 28th.

Update (May 25, 2015): There's more now.

Signs morph into a banana

Foe years now, muralist Joe Pagac has been painting murals on the east side of the Rialto Theatre. Most of the murals were about upcoming concerts, but the right end of the murals sprouted something new in 2012: a man holding a sort-of protest sign. From time to time, the sign changed. A few years later, a change on the building led to a change on the sign. Let's take a look.

April 11, 2012
May 17, 2012
February 23, 2013
December 25, 2013
December 21, 2014
March 7, 2015

In the next-to-last view above, a new drainspout covered the right end of the mural. Joe didn't wait long to replace the half-covered man with a painting showing the man's arm wrapped around the drainspout... and, instead of holding a sign in his other hand, he holds up a banana. Brilliant... and fun!

I'm not sure that I caught all of the signs over the years, but you get the idea. Thanks, Joe.

10th and Park, part 2

In Monday's entry, we showed a block party last Saturday around the corner of 10th Street and Park Avenue. I had to leave before the murals were done, so I came back Sunday morning to grab some photos. What I found was...

...nothing except the building as it looked before Saturday's event. (The empty space at the right edge was where a group was painting a black-and-white mural; the two spaces on the left side had the color murals being made.)

I tweeted Kristin Tovar, @WhyILiveWhereILive, on Twitter to ask if she knew the story. The building owner wanted the murals to be mobile, she wrote; they were attached in frames and with rope for just that reason. The artists decided to take the murals after the day was over. She sent along a photo she found of the mural after the group of painters had finished it:

I'll try to keep you in touch with murals from Why I Love Where I Live and the Community Mural Project.

10th and Park, part 1

Saturday the 25th was a celebration at the corner of 10th Street and Park Avenue: a community mural project to brighten up the gray walls of the building on the southwest corner.

Today! pic.twitter.com/bmu1O1RAOP

— Words On The Avenue (@WordsOnTheAve) April 25, 2015

The main attraction was probably the mural being painted on a piece of cloth tied to the north side of that building — for Words on the Avenue:

I hadn't heard of Words on the Avenue. People told me that they have a monthly open-mic evening to, as their Twitter profile says, “... unify the writing world by creating a space where all genres can co-exist. Find us at Café Passé every last Sunday of the Month.”

To the left is a closeup of one of the muralists.

Sketch artist Chelsea showed me the mural design. The original plan was to project the design onto the canvas and trace it out in fine lines. But the light was too bright. Drawing a grid over the design, then repeating the grid on the white background of the mural, did the job. Next, a closeup showing the design and the grid:

Kristin, one of the organizers, told me that the mural would be finished when I saw WORDS ON THE AVENUE above the mural design. (More on that later...)

This mural was only part of the celebration. Students chalked thank-you notes on the sidewalk in front of the TUSD (Tucson Unified School District) building on the southeast corner. The middle of the intersection was filled with potted desert plants and a flower painted around the cover in the center. "STREET CLOSED" barricades and food trucks opened the corner for everyone to walk through from side to side. Two other murals were being made for the east side of 95 South Park. The first photo below shows artists making a mural, and the second shows the other mural next to a “What do you want in your neighborhood?” suggestion board:

I left the party after an hour or so, before the first mural was done. I came back the next day — on Sunday morning — to snap photos of the rest of what had happened. The picture wasn't pretty, as you'll see next time...

Settling down at Seventh & Toole?

The business at 7th & Toole that used to hold BLX, and its series of “blocks” murals, stood empty for a while. Last we saw here was a mural posted on December 8, 2014. By February 27, 2015, the picture had changed:

The new business here is Take Flight Yoga and Movement. They've kept the skate-able track underneath the mural that was added when the BLX skate shop used to be here.

Borderlands in between

In the past month or so, you've probably seen plenty of photos of Joe Pagac's new mural along the railroad tracks behind Borderlands Brewing Company. Though I try to post photos in the order I get them, sometimes (like this case) Joe worked faster than I did! So now I'm backtracking a bit.

I've just updated the April 1st entry, Joe Pagac finishing Borderlands Brewing mural, to include some photos from February showing the mural about halfway done. That entry also has a link to the one on April 10th showing the mural finished.

Let's see if I can keep up in the future. (So much art, so little time! :)

Temporary on Toole

Along tilted Toole Avenue (which runs diagonally from northwest to southeast, but it's called East Toole) are two panels with five murals each. There's often a fresh mural or two each time I ride by — for instance, on February 27th:

I didn't remember the two at the right end, so I'm pretty sure that I haven't shown them here. (There's so much art along Toole that it's easy to lose track!) Here's the first of the new ones — the fourth from left to right. The javelina is thinking “I despise those humans and their garbage!” It's signed Gabriel Ruiz Villegas 2/12/15:

And the mural at the right end looks to me like an underwater scene:

I think the “waves” rippling across the mural may be wrinkles in paper or cloth that the mural was printed on.

Art on a prison? Yes!

Last time, we saw a mural by Cristina Cárdenas at 29th & 4th in South Tucson. She also told me about another mural of hers in a place I wouldn't have thought to look: the Minimum Security Facility on South Mission Road. Although it's too bad that people inside the prison can't see the mural, it sure brightens the view from outside! A sign on the fence warned me to stay 20 feet away from it, so a photo had to show the fence.

Here's a closeup (which, as always, you can click on to get an even larger view):

Outside of the fence is a low wall with tile that echoes the mural. Here's the left end (with just a bit of the mural visible at top left):

And the right end; you'll want to click to see more detail:

I snapped the photos on February 11th.

South Tucson at 29th & 4th

When I met Cristina Cárdenas earlier this year, she told me about two murals of hers that haven't been shown here. I grabbed photos of the first (and the next) on February 11th:

More of Cristina's art on April 17th!

(By the way, Cristina also created the art at the western-most streetcar stop. Here's an Arizona Daily Star article about art at all the streetcar stops.)

Update (April 16, 2015) As I was writing the next entry, I did more searching for a Web or Facebook page of Cristina's. I didn't find one, but I did find a YouTube video that shows some of her art, has her story of emigrating from Mexico, and tells the story of the mural above:



The mural story starts at 10:38 into the video, and you can see just that part by clicking there.

Joe Pagac's Borderlands Brewing mural

On April 1, we showed Joe Pagac finishing Borderlands Brewing mural. I rode right over to see it on the 5th. It's one of Tucson's biggest murals, filled with Western vistas and humans in animals' bodies. Here's the mural in its surroundings:

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

Let's move in closer and look at the two halves:

Close-ups of the animal-people, left to right:

Amazing work, Joe.

Update (May 26, 2015): David Aber sent photos of the mural. He pointed out that the top and bottom parts don't seem to line up:

Maybe by walking over to the edge of the mural, so you see the two parts at an angle, they might match up? Interesting.

Update (December 19, 2015): David Aber wrote:

Back in May, you and I had a discussion about Joe Pagac’s mural on the Borderlands Brewing Building. We couldn’t get the upper and lower parts of the mural to line up.....but this guy can:

Surreal Fantasy Mural Panorama <<>> Tucson's Warehouse Arts District

Update (December 24, 2015): David Aber sent email to artist Joe Pagac about the alignment issue. Joe wrote back:

Hey!

Glad you like the mural so much! I'm working on a few more in the neighborhood that should be done soon. To answer your question, the pieces do line up when viewed from the center of the mural standing on the north side of the tracks (see attached photo). I wanted to find a way to fill the whole space so the upper tier is a bobcat on the mesa sneaking up on the baby quail with their mother about to pitch some dynamite at it. It makes it a bit confusing as you walk around it... But those were the walls I had to work with. Hope that answers your question!

Joe

Update (November 5, 2018): Today's Cactus Catz blog entry has more photos: Monday Mural : Joe Pagac’s Borderlands Brewery mural, Tucson, Arizona.

Update (February 17, 2022): BG Boyd Photography, which specializes in photos from drones, sent this panoramic aerial view:

(The building wall has two flat parts angled, as you can see in the first photo. There's also a small section of wall above, set back a ways. The whole mural appears curved in the panorama.) Thanks as always, BG!

Rock Martinez at 6th & Toole

Rock Martinez is one of Tucson's best-known muralists. Nicole Hennig caught him on video, using Periscope, repainting one of the panels next to the 6th Street underpass from Toole Avenue. Periscope encourages vertical videos, so most of this frame (on YouTube) is black:



You can see some of the Periscope chatter and hear Nicole replying to subscribers.

I rode my bike to get a closeup on Sunday the 4th — three days ago.

I'll put a photo of the finished mural online ASAP!