Tucson Weekly article: Visions of Johanna

Here's a story about Tucson muralist Johanna Martinez: Visions of Johanna: Tucson muralist preserves history's lines.

We have some photos of her murals (almost certainly not all of them) on the blog:

• More on Meyer (May 31, 2009)
• Greetings from Barrio Santa Rosa (January 26, 2015)
• Murals being made, part 29a (first of a series — from July 06, 2015 — about her Buffet Bar mural
• The Talking Mural (Murals being made, part 47a)

I'm hoping to add more of her murals. I'll add links here. If you don't follow this blog regularly, please check back.

Mural tours (and more) of Benson and Bisbee

As Tucson gets Toasty, it might be time to head for the hills! The Arizona Daily Star has a couple of articles that should help:

• A look at the amazing murals in Benson: This article also lists some indoor art, restaurants, and places to stay.
• Bisbee Murals

Fighters!

Taco Giro Mexican Grill & Seafood has four locations in Tucson.  There are several interior murals at the E. 22nd St. location.  Using the camera in my cell phone, I photographed two of them.

This is a stitch of two photos from Jan. 19, 2018

Cockfight

This photo is from Feb. 2, 2018

Emiliano Zapata, a leading figure in the Mexican Revolution. Assassinated April 10, 1919.

Click on either photo for a slideshow of larger and sharper images.
Here's a previous post of an exterior mural: On the menu at Taco Giro

Ward 1 City Council Office

In front of the office, on October 23, 2016, I snapped this photo of their mural. (Actually, it's our mural, isn't it.)

Here are the artists' signatures:

Pacman next to the border

On January 29, 2014, we published two photos along the US-Mexico border wall in Two sides on Toole. I stopped by (as I do often: The art on this building is always changing!) on November 13, 2016, to find that the dumpster wasn't painted with a UFO anymore; it had Pacman.

This isn't a word on Scrabble :)

I just checked a site with allowable words for Scrabble™ and found that XUT isn't. (Darn. After I found this door — on the always-changing art Mecca of 191-197 Toole — I'd added XUT to my secret list of Killer Scrabble Words. :)

(If you know more about XUT, please leave a comment below. You can be anonymous.)

I took the photo back on November 13, 2016.

35 Must-See Murals in Metro Phoenix

The March 6th Phoenix New Times article by Lynn Trimble has photos and info:

35 Must-See Murals in Metro Phoenix

I honestly try to avoid Phoenix when I can ;-) but I'll be there for an afternoon and a morning next month. I follow Lynn on Twitter… and there defintely is a lot of art in the Phoenix area. (Maybe I'll even decide to go back? :)

Bronx Wash re-re(-re?) visited

This lonngggg mural stretches, panel by panel, along the section of Linden Street east of 4th Avenue. It's an ongoing project. David Aber stopped by on on April 17, 2017. He snapped the newest panels on that date at the western end of the mural in a left to right, east to west direction:

“Rebirth” by Emma Bayne:

"La Paz" by Nikki Ortiz:

Untitled by Sneha Srinivasan. Her description of her work includes the words “Kindness, Hope and Love” which David has used as the title on his Flickr post. ("Yes," he said, "I spelled her name correctly."):

An untitled work in progress by Teresa Altamirano (finished by now, I'd guess):

For more photos from this blog, take a look at:

• Beautiful Bronx Wash (March 14, 2011)
• Bronx Wash mural revisited, part 1 of 3 (December 19, 2016)
• Murals being made, part 42: Bronx Wash addition (December 21, 2016)
• Bronx Wash mural (complete), part 3 of 3 (December 23, 2016)

Even more art at El Rio on Speedway!

If you haven't seen our blog entries from May 02, 2008 and January 23, 2012, they'll give you a good introduction to the great murals at this Community Center. But, in a visit on November 12, 2016, I found more murals. This is another in my series of almost-lost mural photos…

I'll (uncharacteristically :) let the murals speak for themselves:

Update (September 20, 2024): The murals have been refreshed or replaced in the past five years. Today's post, Another walk around El Rio Neighborhood Center, shows all of the murals I photographed in July 2024. (I didn't get any murals inside.)

(Not) Mural Lovers, part 4: One of Tucson's largest ruined

I remember the days when taggers didn't trash murals. It's so sad that these animals seem to be spraying their hatred (or fear?) onto the art that almost all of us (not including the taggers) love.

Tucson News Now reported on Friday: Artist to repair twice-tagged mural. This is Joe Pagac's huge mural on Stone just north of 6th. You can see the first tagging in our July 2, 2017 entry !*?%&#= TAGGERS!!.

Joe originally covered the mural with a clear protective coat, but it'll apparently still take him 8-12 hours to repair the tags.

Making the Himmel library more inviting

Next in our series of almost-lost murals…

It was November 11, 2016. I'd read about the neighborhood-sponsored beautification of the Himmel Park library, so I stopped by with my camera.

One of the changes was the new bicycle rack outside the front door, which is topped by signs lettered with bicycle chains — such as “STUD.” (At least I thought that's what it said. Actually, I just now zoomed in on the photo. I can see that there's a “Y” at the end, made with a much darker piece of chain. What a shame. :)

Out front are mosaic-topped benches:

Here are close-ups of the bench tops:

Why not fifth-anniversary photos?

Every time my inbox begins to fill with mural (and mailbox art) photos, I double-check to be sure I've put each photo online before I delete the email that had the photo. So, back in December, I was surprised to see a message from Mark Fleming that he'd sent to Randy Garsee, this blog's founder. Randy sent it on to me that same day — February 25, 2013. My email program shows that I replied to Randy right away. But I don't remember ever posting these murals. (Mea culpa! Still, it can be tough to keep track of well over 1,000 murals.)

Anyway, I decided to wait for the five-year delay between Mark sending the photos and them going online. Somehow it didn't feel urgent to rush them online a month or two earlier. Still, I'm sorry for the long delay, Mark.

It was back on November 22, 2014 that I spotted Rock "Cyfi" Martinez’ mural on the north side of BreakOut Studios, 828 North Stone:

But, unlike Mark Fleming, I didn't check the alley behind the building.

I'm not sure that I got all of the photos? So I'll post them in the order that Mark sent them. The first two seem to be side-by-side, but I'm not sure about the third.

Mark wrote that the murals seem to be “by Alex Devowon and someone named 'oddeven'.”

Update (February 23, 2018): Thanks to ArtLoungeProductions (@artloungetuc on Twitter) for helping me find that BreakOut Studios has moved to East Speedway. Their website is breakoutstudiostucson.com and their Twitter feed is @BreakOutStudios. I'll have to stop by and check for new murals!

Murals being (not quite) made, Part 30c

I've been working through every one of my photos taken since early 2016. Along the way, I found some mural photos that haven't been posted to this blog yet. I showed the first of them on January 26; I'll show the rest in the next few blog entries.

I've been waiting for this mural. I first found it on March 7, 2015, as artist Jason Cross was painting what would turn out to be one of at least two or three versions. That first blog entry is Murals being made, part 30a; I posted it on November 9, 2015.

I drive by the wall from time to time. As it turned out, on November 8, 2015 — just the day before Part 30a was scheduled to be posted — I noticed some changes. So I took photos and posted them a week later, on November 16, as Murals being made (not finished), part 30b. Here's the last photo from that blog entry:

Next, two photos of the middle and the right end being changed (I think!) on May 2, 2016. The colors aren't very accurate:

Since then, I've driven by and haven't noticed any obvious changes except that the north (right) end is completely different from the version I showed above. So I decided to add this blog entry, Part 30c. Here's the photo of the right end that I took on October 25, 2016:

I haven't noticed any changes in nearly a year and a half since then. A lot of the mural elements have white space between them and the background. Maybe the artist is planning more changes, too? If I do spot any obvious changes as I drive by at 35 mph, I'll add Part 30d.

Update (March, 2019): Last month, on a stormy February 3rd, I drove along this familiar part of Alvernon and noticed that the mural was no more. You can see what's (probably) the end of the story in Murals being (un-)made, Part 30d.

Murals being made, even more (part 39, continued)

On October 3, 2016, I posted photos of a new mural on walls around a Tucson Electric Power substation. Here's one:

At the time I wrote that, the mural didn't seem finished. But I never went back to check (or to see another mural that another artist had painted at Valley of the Moon). Last week, a friend sent me photos of part of the TEP mural. Hers show the mural looking finished. I've mixed them into the original blog entry. Now the revised blog entry shows the progress:

Murals being made, part 39: TEP south of Cushing

South Tucson Fire Dept.

Viewed from E. 27th St. between S. 5th and S. 6th Avenues on Jan. 1, 2018.  Artist(s) are unknown.

Statue and Mosaic Sign

Click for a larger and sharper image.

Las Artes

On Sept 3, 2011 Jerry Peek posted photos of mosaics at the Las Artes Learning Center.  His last photo shows empty spaces on the north wall.  See Las Artes under construction.  Here are the completed mosaics that I found on Dec. 28, 2017:

Las Artes is the Pima County Arts & Education Center for ages 17-22.  It prepares students for their GED and builds employment skills through art projects.

Click on any photo for a slideshow of larger and sharper images.

Art in an alley: 2016 and 2013

I just discovered some mural photos I took on November 13, 2016. (I'm trying to organize all of my photos, not just the murals: It's frustrating because I've had lots of computer problems, backups I can't restore, multiple copies of some photos… ah, sigh, the problems of art-lovers.) Anyway, I was at the corner of Railroad Avenue and 15th Street when I looked northeast and saw a garage wall:

The base of the saguaro — actually, the whole mural — has painted rocks and real rocks:

While I'm out on my bicycle or in my car, if I come across a mural when I wasn't looking for one, I'll usually send myself an email message from my phone. My phone (unhelpfully) auto-corrected the location of this mural, but I didn't notice until now. So I went hunting with Geotagger and Google Maps to find the spot. Then I went to Google Street View and found a view from April, 2013:



At the bottom left is a trash container that looks like the same concept as ones that were painted more recently in cooperation with the City and the Tucson Arts Brigade. The garage wall design is different, though.

Update (February 16, 2018): This series of nearly-lost photos resumes with today's entry.

New on North Stone

I drive along North Stone fairly often, so I know most of the (many!) murals by heart. But, as I drove southbound from Glenn on October 7, 2017, I saw something new:

Here's the artist's signature on the bottom-left corner:

Black Bear Diner

The Black Bear Diner replaced Coco's in Aug. of 2017.  I found this mural on the east exterior wall on 12/04/2017:

Click on the photo for a larger and sharper image.

Desert Museum stingray mural

Joe Pagac painted this mural at the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, and Mark Fleming took photos on December 7th, 2017: