Outside Park Place Street Art Festival

SAACA, Rio Nuevo, and others organized this year's Park Place Street Art Festival on Saturday the 3rd. There were events inside and outside the mall. I didn't get there on Saturday, but I walked along the north wall outside early yesterday morning the 4th — before the rain likely washed away the chalk art. (I also saw the huge new mural at the southwest corner. I'll have photos of that another day.)

A number of professional artists drew with chalk outside and painted inside. Kids drew with chalk outside. Let's start with the pros, then see the kids' work.

Because there are so many photos, I haven't done my usual careful editing. These are all the original photos.

Tyson Krank

Tyson's mural, near mall entrance 3 on the west side of Total Wine, wasn't finished early this morning.

@Edwina the artist

Wes Creigh

Children

I started at the west end and walked to the east end.

Even in Death

The mural is called "Even in Death". Artist Akers (on Instagram, @waddup.native) painted it, thanks to the Fronteridades project through Galeria Mitotera and the UA Confluence Center. The artist's Instagram post for this mural is @waddup.native, April 21, 2023. (You can click there to see it. You shouldn't need an Instagram account.)

The skeleton figure in the mural an "Anciana" or elder, from the perspective of the Pascua Yaqui/Yoeme artist.

There's a lot of explanation and a video on Instagram:

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Galeria Mitotera & Gifts (@galeriamitotera)

If you can't see that or would like to open the post yourself, here's a link to click: https://www.instagram.com/galeriamitotera/reel/CvisQ6ggA5T/.

David Aber took the photo at the top of this post. Thanks, David.

Bats and extraterrestrials!!

Just in time for Halloween, here's a sorta-spooky mural by Danny Martin at Our Family Services. (What do family services have to do with bats and spaceships? Only they and Danny know.)

The photos are from July 8, 2024.

Park Place Street Art Festival this weekend

In September, I read an announcment from SAACA about the free Park Place Street Art Festival on Saturday, November 2. The theme is Dia de los Muertos, in partnership with the All Souls Procession. The "reveal" of the largest mural in Arizona is 3-4pm in the southwest parking lot. There'll also be an ofrenda, live mariachis, ten artists painting, a Kids’ Zone (where, if this is like previous festivals, kids can make their own chalk murals on the sidewalk)…

    https://www.saaca.org/park-place-street-art-festival.html

We've covered four other festivals on this blog:

• April 16, 2012: Park Place Chalk Art Festival
• April 10-14, 2013: Park Place Chalk Art Festival: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
• April 2, 2015: Fourth annual Park Place Chalk Art Festival
• April 11, 2016: Park Place Chalk Art Festival 2016

I'm not sure what happened to the festival after 2016. (Maybe I started traveling a lot and missed them?) This year's looks every bit as fun!

Jackalope wrapped in lights

The Little Free Libraries I've seen are mostly in front of people's homes. They usually have designs that are friendly to the neighborhood… and over-the-top clever. This one, at the southwest corner of Kennedy & Rubio in the Barrio Viejo, fits that perfectly:

On the east side is Danny Martin's mural of a jackalope. (I think jackalopes were spotted not long ago in a wash near here. 😉) The box is wrapped in holiday-type lights — with an extension cord connected to the home just south; I'm guessing the homeowners built the box.

I hopped stopped by on July 13, 2024.

Danny Martin joins mural party along 6th Avenue

What's different about this Danny Martin mural? It's on the west and south walls of Sooters Auto Service.

Of course, any muralist can have fun and paint anything. But I think Danny had more fun with this mural than usual. Here's why:

• He hasn't made a lot of murals with color. This one has a bright red truck.
• The truck is really bright red for having a moon behind it and a night sky.
• I usually see javelina together — especially the youngsters. What are the little ones doing scattered all through the mural?
• You can't pull up to get gas on the front side of the pump because there's a saguaro in the way. And keep an eye our for the prickly pear while you're filling your tank (unless one of the saguaro near the gas pump works for the gas station and will do it for you).
• His murals often have two identical saguaros. In this mural, all three are the same.

Tucson has lots of great murals, but not too many this fun. (There's another fun mural across the street. Our post The Thinkers un-Tagged has photos.)

To see his other murals on this blog, click on Danny Martin at the bottom of this post. On July 13, 2024, I walked (carefully) into 6th Avenue to grab this photo.

Hidden on Contzen

This neighborhood, Barrio Anita, has several big mural installations in and around it: the east side of I-10, Anita Street Market, Oury Park, and Davis Bilingual School. To see them, you can use our mural map at map.tucsonmurals.org; try searching for Contzen. (I'll include a screenshot at the end of this post.) There's also a pocket park along Contzen Avenue, in front of the I-10 mural; details are in today's post Two tables next to giant murals on the Tucson's Pocket Parks blog.

There are several murals in front of homes. Here's one on the fence in front of a home along Contzen:

The artist's signature is in the middle of the left edge:

Below is a Google Map that has the mural marked with an X and a square at the pocket park a few blocks north on Contzen.

I took the photos on July 11, 2024.

Brighter versions of tired tagged murals

For at least 15 years, there's been a mural almost hidden on the south end of Armory Park Center, at the northwest corner of 13th Street & 5th Avenue. Here it is on Friday, May 29, 2009, in our post Giant plants (or tiny buildings):

We also showed the mural a few months ago in Tired tagged murals.

But we haven't shown the long side of the mural very well. I stopped by on July 13, 2024, to grab closeups. I've edited these photos to make the colors a bit brighter — less faded and more (I think) like the original mural. From left (west) to right (east), here they are:

The Living Mural transformed

The former Living Mural, on on 7th Street near 3rd Avenue, has evolved since it was first created in 2021. The idea in 2021 was to divide a wall into smaller spaces where different artists could paint their own mini-murals. There are lots of photos from May 2021 through September 2022 in the posts The Living Mural is evolving and Living Mural still alive in June. By September 2022, Pen “The Desert Pen” Macias had repainted the left half with a desert scene; see Desert Pen's mural is alive.

I came back on July 13, 2024 to take photos of Pen's finished mural. (It was actually finished months before.) Here they are: an overall view, three sections from left (north) to right (south), then a closeup of a sign she painted in the middle of the mural.

We showed another mural by Pen last time in Murals being made, part 81: Dandelion seeds!.