6th St. construction murals: our 1500th entry

This blog has been online since July 12, 2006. In that time, we've posted 1500 entries. Most of them had photos of murals, and some had mural news. For this 1500th entry, we've got photos of the cloth murals hung along the construction fencing that starts on 4th Avenue just south of 6th Street, continues west along 6th Street down 5th Avenue, then back to 6th Street, ending a bit west of 5th Avenue.

Some of the panels are advertising for the project being built behind the fence; others promote 4th Avenue and its businesses. I haven't included all of those. Some of the artists' panels have been stolen, and some of those replaced. These photos show the murals on November 12 and December 2, 2019. One shows a blank section of fence; after that is a photo of the mural that was originally there, before it was stolen; the photo is courtesy of the artist, Marcy Ellis.

2019 Downtown Murals Project, 4 of 4: Critters on a bike

If you're driving southbound on Stone just before 6th Street, look fast through a parking lot between the buildings:

Joe Pagac painted another bicycle-themed mural, the year before, almost across the street: the huge Epic Bikes mural. The animals there are riding bicycles, too, but probably not as fast as the roadrunner and his two passengers:

November 30, 2019, was a gray day. So I used my favorite free photo editor, GIMP, to make the mural look sunny.

2019 Downtown Murals Project, 3 of 4: Not a Little One

The scene on this block used to be boring… until last spring:

Jessica Gonzales painted this long mural on two businesses: The Little One restaurant, at the left side (its storefront is at 151 N. Stone) and Suntran Special Services. Here are those two halves:

(As always, you can click for bigger views.) The credits are on a sign in the middle of the right side:

I took the photos on November 24, 2019.

We'll wrap up this series next time with another of Joe Pagac's bicycle-themed murals.

2019 Downtown Murals Project, 2 of 4: La Madre

Racheal Rios and Carlos Valenzuela painted that dreamy scene above two benches just across the sidewalk from Alameda Street. It's not much like the original design, which you can see (unless the photos have been updated) in the pages Downtown Tucson is getting 4 new murals this spring (from the Arizona Daily Star's This is Tucson).

David Aber caught the mural painting in progress on May 4th, 2019, when the title he heard was “Families Belong Together, Water and Thorns”:

(As always, you can click on a photo for larger views of all of them.)

The two benches are surrounded by scenes with “you are my other me” in English and Spanish:

The credits are on the side of the right-hand bench:

Next time, it's down the street a block to two side-by-side murals.

2019 Downtown Murals Project, 1 of 4: Danger! ¡Piñatas!

Ever been chased by a piñata? Ignacio Garcia's mural in the alley near The UPS Store on Sixth Avenue was inspired by a childhood memory of being chased by bulls on a family trip to Redington, Arizona. It's also the opposite concept of hitting a piñata, he said. Those quotes are from the This is Tucson article Downtown Tucson is getting 4 new murals this spring. The article also shows the whole mural from Ignacio's design, which is good because the narrow alley makes it just about impossible to photograph the whole thing head-on. [Note from 2022: See the update at the end of this post.]

On April 16th, 2019, I caught Ignacio painting the right (east) end of the mural:

A story by KGUN9 TV, The making of a mural: what's in the works in downtown Tucson, says the boy is from a picture of Garcia's 8-year-old son.

Fast-forward to November 24th. Here's the mural, which was finished in the spring:

A couple of closer shots:

See how one of his flip-flops has flown into the air and that there's a shadow behind it? There's also a shadow of the power pole near the end of the alley.

And last, the credits:

Next time, the second of four from the 2019 Downtown Murals Project.

Update (February 22, 2022): BG Boyd Photography, which specializes in drone photography, sent this aerial photos taken on February 14th:

He sent a second photo, taken from straight above, that I edited with my favorite photo editor GIMP to make it appear as if you're directly in front of the mural:

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

Thanks, BG!

Update (May 1, 2024): Ignacio posted a sweet video on Facebook of his son seeing himself in the mural for the first time:



A direct link to the video is: https://www.facebook.com/100010592835349/videos/281399325047894/

Ted DeGrazia by Danny Martin

A year ago, the wall of 191 East Toole near the parking lot looked like this:

(The photo is from our January 4, 2019 entry.)

On November 24, 2019, the front half of the wall had changed:

The marquee is in the style of the Rialto Theatre on Congress Street, but with “191 E Toole” instead. The mural of Tucson artist Ted DeGrazia is by Tucson artist Danny Martin:

Update (August 19, 2020): The Rialto-style marquee has been repainted all “Black Lives Matter”.