Inside Davis Bilingual Elementary

This blog has lots of photos of the art at Davis Bilingual Elementary School. (To see more, click on the “Search this blog” link in the right column, then type Davis Elementary.) A lot of the murals were painted by students. Others are by Luis Gustavo Mena, a Tucson muralist who does a lot to help the school. I stopped by on May 15th to see his mural in the cafeteria. The helpful people in the school office pointed out other murals inside.

Cafeteria

The mural and three closeups:

Hallways

Alongside some of the murals — which, I think, students painted — is some of what looks like their classroom artwork.

Dwayne Manuel painting Landslice murals at TMA

Last week's TMA-list newsletter, dated August 12 (you can click there to see it), includes some info and a video of Dwayne Manuel — of the On’k Akimel Oʼodham/Salt River-Maricopa Indian Community — working on the installation Landslice: a series of murals.

TMA will post weekly videos to show his progress. I try to tweet each week's TMA-list issue from @TucsonArt on Twitter; you can click there to see them, even if you don't have a Twitter account. Or you can subscribe to the newsletter.

Selena

Selena Quintanilla-Pérez was a pop culture icon killed in 1995.  A film was made about her life and career starring Jennifer Lopez.  Jonny Ballesteros (aka Jonny Bubonik) painted this image of Selena on a wall of the American Eat Co. and Market.  Photographed on April 22, 2019.

Click on the photo for a larger and sharper image.

Paint a mural on Saturday

From The Arizona Daily Star's online #ThisIsTucson:

Help Tucson artists paint murals on a Fourth Avenue construction fence

Murals in Montevideo

I like to travel, and I like murals. Since you're reading this, you probably like murals too — even if they aren't in Tucson. So here's a look at a few murals in the creative city of Montevideo, Uruguay. The streets have a lot of graffiti; some of it I'd call urban art and others, well, tagging…

A wise owl next to the entrance of
Centro Residentes de Artigas, San Jose 885

Ostriches, I think, along Juan Carlos Gómez
seen from the corner of Piedras

A Cutcsa bus

Recycling bins painted in the style of
the late Uruguayan artist José Gurvich

Tango dancers, what else? (Tango started here.)

I took the photos July 25th.

Pescaderia y Taqueria Yami

The mural at this Mexican seafood restaurant on South Fourth Avenue was painted by Jilmar Alaniz.  Photographed on May 27, 2019.

Cowboy Riding a Swordfish

Here's a closer view.

I believe the cowboy is a self-portrait of the artist.

Click on either photo for larger and sharper views.

Quick Rialto mural tour

Before the downtown construction boom of the past few years, it used to be easy to see the ever-changing concert murals on the east side of the Rialto Theatre. Since a building went up close to the murals, now there's just an alley. To see the murals from a car, you really need to get out and walk. In case you haven't been there, here's a quick tour.

I snagged this photo while I was stopped in traffic on Congress January 19th:

Once you're on foot, you'll see the Prince mural that's on the wall permanently — as well as the latest concert mural(s):

Joe Pagac's little man and monkey are at the right edge of the photo above.

Wildlife on Country Club

This mural is in front of a home at the corner of Arroyo Chico — a place you're likely to see wildlife:

A couple of details:

I was there on April 14th.

Back of the Lost Barrio

The Lost Barrio is a shopping area along Park Avenue south of Broadway. If you come in on 12th Street from Euclid or Tyndall, you'll see the back side of the buildings. It's a funky scene: a dirt parking lot with a bunch of old doors and a couple of murals (maybe more, or others, by the time you see this).

If you'd like a Google satellite map with a pin in front of the wall, click there.

Here's the door at the right end of the first photo above… photos of the mural are next:

The first, second, third and fifth photos above are from January 2, 2019. Photos 4 and 6 are from January 19.

Gerardo Olmedo, the owner of Lost Barrio Gallery — the store behind the mural — sent me this photo on April 16th of Salvador Duran in front of his mural:

Danny Martin Art

Danny Martin has two small murals near downtown Tucson that have not appeared in this blog.  Both were photographed on 3/14/2019.  Here they are:

South side of Etherton Gallery (of photography)

at 135 South Sixth Ave.

Camera Lady

25 West Simpson St.
Must be viewed from Stone Ave. down an alley.

"Peggy Sue"

Click on either photo for larger and sharper images.

Murals being (re-)made, part 52: Anita Market

The Anita Street Market has had murals on its north wall since at least 2009 — which is when I took this photo on May 14th:

(It's from the blog entry Murals in (on) store.)

Since then, the left (east) side of the mural has been repainted; the right-side mural was also freshened up. Let's start with photos of the completed mural… I took them on May 15, 2019. After these are photos of the new murals being painted.

Next, the murals being repainted on August 22, 2018. In the second photo, you can see that they've kept the man holding the moon and the sun in his hands from the older mural. The last photo shows that the mural had been tagged.

The right-most mural is signed Gino M. on the bottom left corner and Jesus C. on the bottom right.

"Water is Life"

Murals by students from Pima County's Las Artes Program.  Part of the Primavera Foundation's South Tucson Greenway Public Art Project.  The murals depict daybreak, noon and evening but, frankly, I'm not sure I've captioned them correctly.

Found on the back wall of the Capilla Community Garden at W. 34th St. & S. 9th Ave. in South Tucson.  Can only be seen from the Southwestern Greenway.

Photos taken on Feb. 27, 2019.

Evening

Noon

Daybreak

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

A history of Joe Pagac's little man on the Rialto

I've been working again on my never-ending project: sorting through a backlog of photos I've taken. I found a folder that I made some time ago — but never posted here, I think. It shows a man standing to the right side of the murals Joe Pagac has painted and re-painted for at least ten years. The first Rialto mural we showed on this blog — without the man — was photographed December 13, 2009.

I'm sure we didn't get all of his concert murals over the years. The first time I saw the “little man” (as I call him) was April 14, 2012:

Here he is, from 2012 through 2018:

	April 14, 2012
	May 18, 2012
	March 6, 2013
	December 25, 2013
	December 21, 2014
	March 7, 2015
	July 27, 2018

After a while, Joe replaced the protest sign with a monkey and the man both holding onto a banana. (Notice how both the man and the monkey have a hand or two wrapped around the downspout?) Though I haven't checked this year, I'd guess that's still the way it looks. The shrubbery in the last photo was taken away sometime later.

Kiss of Smoke

Kiss of Smoke is a barbecue restaurant on S. Plumer that opened Jan. 5, 2019 next door to the Silver Room. The owners have entered barbecue competitions for a decade. They had a food truck for about a year before they decided to open a brick-and-mortar.

I took this photo on Feb. 4, 2019.

Painted by Jonny Ballesteros, aka Jonnybubonik

There's an identical mural on the front of the restaurant.

Click on the photo for a larger and sharper image.

New KVOA-TV video: painting new Palo Verde Pool mural

Four students are working with muralist Isaac Caruso on a new mural that'll be dedicated at the end of the month:



To see the video on the YouTube website, click there.

Daily Wildcat story on Joe Pagac's latest mural

The story about Joe's new whales mural was published Monday, July 8th:

UA Alumnus Paints Tucson's Largest Mural

It's on the north wall of the former Catalina Cinemas building, behind what was a Bookmans location until it was torn down.