(Downtown) Murals being made, part 38: To-Ree-Nee Wolf Keiser

We're at the last of this series, each showing the prgress of a mural from a blank white wall (in most cases) to a finished and spectacular work of art. (By the way, we're posting this on Friday, instead of the usual Thursday, because the blog's tenth anniversary is this coming Tuesday. So next week's schedule will be pushed back by a day.)

The eighth mural is on Fifth Avenue, just north of Broadway. The wall stayed blank for quite a while after other artists had started their murals. Here's the view on May 1st, May 8th, May 14th, May 19th, and May 30th:

When I saw the mural start to take shape on my June 4th visit, I realized that it was completely different that Pete Goldlust's design shown at the Downtown Mural Project design open house held April 28th. (If you'd like to see it, click that link and scroll down.) Not long after, I read that the artist was now To-Ree-Nee Wolf Keiser:

The camera I used this time couldn't quite fit in the whole mural due to the light post at the right edge. So here's a shot from across the street:

June 10th, there was color at the ends and bottom center. I brought the same camera that wouldn't show the entire mural, so here are (most of) the two ends:

The murals were looking nearly finished on June 19th, with a couple of white spots :

June 27th, there were a couple of white areas: an irregular shape at the center and a rectangular one at top right. The top right had dots in it:

Thanks to a tip from David Aber, I met the artist in person on July 4th. She talked about different parts of the design (which I should have made notes about!) and filled in the white rectangle shown at the top right above:

When I came by this morning (Friday July 8th), the platform was gone. I stood between the desert willows and the wall (I wish I'd tried that before instead of shooting from the ends), but it worked pretty well. I've stitched the three photos into one:

(As always, you can click on the photo for a bigger view.) The stitching has a couple of jumps near the top, but I think it gives a pretty good idea of the mural. It's definitely worth walking up and seeing it in person!

That's it for the eight mew murals from the Downtown Murals Project. This coming Tuesday is the tenth-anniversary blog entry… and Friday will be another entry. Then we'll get back to the normal Monday and Thursday schedule. Thanks for coming along!

(Downtown) Murals being made, part 37: Luis Mena

Luis Gustavo Mena has been painting murals in Tucson since the 1970s. Mena is one of eight artists who was chosen to paint in the first (but, I hope, not the last!) series of new downtown murals. You've seen his work in places like Broadway next to the Garces footbridge, in the new Parque de San Cosme near the fire station downtown, and my favorite (of the ones I've found so far, that is): Native Americans facing Columbus’ ships coming across the Atlantic.

Mena's mural covered a notoriously-tagged corner at the corner of North 6th & East Pennington. Back in 2008, it was one of the first murals we covered on this blog:

    In the Shadows of Downtown

Then the taggers took over, as you can see in this series from Google Street View. (Each link will open a new window or tab. When you close it, this page will still be here.)

• March 2011 (shows the whole mural; the blog entry above doesn't)
• July 2013
• April 2015

Fast-forward to 2016. On May 1st, he had outlines drawn. After the overview (you can click for a closer view, as always) is a closeup looking out from the center. The mural extends onto the curved ceiling:

Here are two photos from May 8th. The outlines are surrounded in blue, and there's a bit of yellow. (That yellow area will change later during the month; look ahead to June 4th.) The first shows the south-facing wall; the other shows the corner and east-facing wall:

There wasn't much change by May 14th:

Let's jump ahead five days to May 19th. The left end looks about the same, but Mena has been working on the right end. There's more golden color and more painted-out area at the right end:

He did a lot of work in the next 11 days! There's color everywhere on May 30th:

On June 4th, the mural is looking nearly finished to me. Mena hasn't needed scaffolding, and he hasn't put barriers around the mural (maybe because it's next to an active sidewalk), so it was hard for me to be sure. Notice the change on the left side of the mural just to the right of the post:

Past sunset on June 11th, he was putting finishing touches on the mural when I caught up with him there:

On June 19th, it looked to me like the mural had been finished:

We'll wrap up this series of eight new murals on Thursday.

(Downtown) Murals being made, part 36: Rachel, Tim and Alexandra

Alexandra Gjurasic, Tim Schirack and Rachel Slick worked together on a mural covering the west side of Café 54. It's the fifth of eight Downtown Murals Project works that we've covered here, from start to finish.

May 1st started the way most of the murals did: a blank wall. This one was off-white or tan (as you can see more clearly at the right side of photos farther below):

The artists didn't start right away. On May 8th I stopped by and saw the outline of mountains at the bottom of the “canvas” — with white behind:

By May 14th, things were happening.Besides the scaffolding, there was a hydraulic lift, art, and some barriers around it all:

On the morning of May 19th, I found the three artists hard at work (with a few kids, as well as passersby stopping to have a look and chat with the artists). I introduced myself and asked if I could take photos.

First, here's Rachel on the lift. She's raising the platform to work on the top right corner of the mural:

When I was there, Alexandra and Tim were painting closer to the ground:

And here's a lucky shot of Rachel painting the very top right corner, which sticks up from the rest of the roof. A plane was flying by in the distance:

On May 30th, the lift was gone and the barricades were scattered. (Don't miss the spider at the top right corner, where Rachel was painting as the plane flew behind.)

June 4th, the stuff was out of the way… and the mural shone:

Two more downtown murals to go! (After the last of the eight new downtown murals comes this blog's tenth-anniversary entry, which will be a doozy.)

(Downtown) Murals being made, part 35: Ignacio Garcia

You may have seen Ignacio Garcia's work at the Park Place Chalk Art Festival. (In each of these blog entries, scroll down and look for the drawings by Jose Ignacio Garcia: 2012, 2015 [look for the incredibly realistic 3-D scorpion], and 2016. I missed the 2014 Festival. And I don't think he was there in 2013.) He's also painted other murals inside and outside Tucson. But the new one on the west side of the Rialto Theatre — which you can see from 5th Avenue a bit north of Broadway — is his most prominent in Tucson, I think.

As some other artists’ did, Ignacio's design evolved after he introduced it in the April 26th meeting at the main library:

Ignacio's original design showed a two-story section of theater. But I wasn't sure which side of the “tower” would have the design, so on May 5th I walked around… and found nothing: no white walls, no scaffolding or hydraulic lifts, etc.

My next trip downtown, May 8th, where I drove and parked (a good place to park — with spaces usually available — is within a few blocks of the three-way intersection of 6th, Toole, and Alameda. There are usually spaces up Toole or along Alameda. From there, all the new murals, except Rock Martinez’, are an easy walk.) Ignacio's mural still didn't seem to be on any of the sides of the Rialto's tower.

May 19th, I caught Ignacio on his hydraulic lift stating to paint the jackalope (which, by the way, is a mythical beast: half jackrabbit, half antelope):

The muralists aimed to finish by May 30th, so I walked to 5th & Broadway to see:

Still a bit more touchup on June 4th:

June 10th, the mural had been signed:

Ignacio replaced the girl riding the jackalope with broadcaster Bill Walton, as you can see in the photo from the original presentation on April 26th:

Sorry for the poor quality. I've emailed Ignacio to ask if he has a better version.

Three more murals to go!

Update: BG Boyd Photo shared this aerial view:

(Downtown) Murals being made, part 34: Rock Martinez

Rock “Cyfi” Martinez’ 55-foot-high mural along 7th Avenue just south of busy 6th Street has made him even more of a celebrity than he already was. (He's been painting murals in Tucson for years — after he was caught, and fined $11,000, for illegal tagging.) There's more in the 2008 Tucson Citizen article Denogean: From tagging to legitimate artwork and a 2010 Arizona Public Media report on graffiti.

So let's jump in and see the mural taking shape. May 1st showed no sign of the mural… just a Benjamin Supply banner:

Fast-forward a week to May 8th near sunset. Unlike most other murals, it looks as if Rock applied his own primer coat. (That's because the finished mural wouldn't cover the entire front of the building.) Also, unlike other artists, Rock has sketched some, painted some — instead of sketching the whole thing ahead, possibly at night with a projector.

On May 10th, I was riding by with a friend, saw Rock walking along the front of his mural, asked her to slow down, grabbed a photo (sorry, Rock, not a very good one) and then we kept going. I'm showing the photo here because some sketched-in areas from the photo above now have some color:

(By the way, I saw a photo in last week's Arizona Daily Star article showing that the woman in the center of the mural is Rock's girlfriend Brandi Watkins.)

Four days later, May 14th,there's a dark blue ring and a painted agave:

Here's a closeup of the bottom left corner on May 15th. The main change was more detail in the prickly pear cactus pads:

May 19th (in higher contrast, to show more detail) the prickly pear pads and the dark ring have texture, and orange saguaro grace both sides of the mural:

A week and a half later, May 30th, the mural is looking basically finished to me. But the hydraulic lift is still there, and the mural hasn't been signed. Anyway, here are a photo of the mural and a photo of Rock with someone — maybe Cristina Perez, who worked with him:

When I stopped by during the day on June 4th, the mural had been signed at the top right corner (with more near the bottom right):

(Note for photographers: The mural was in shadow, but I used the free GIMP editor Intelligent Scissors tool to select the front of the building and the Curves tool to brighten it.)

Just for comparison, here's a photo from Rock's introductory proposal at the open house on April 26th:

Those designs weren't meant to be final, but I thought you might want to check the differences!

I came back on the evening of June 4th, in twilight, and found the mural lit spectacularly:

Next week, we're on to the other half of the murals — the second four murals of the eight.

Update (September 17, 2016): In the middle of Rock's Pinterest page right now is a photo of the mural from above (while he was painting from the big hydraulic lift).

Update: The aerial photo below from BG Boyd Photo gives an overall view:

Tucson 12 video on Downtown Murals Project

@Tucson12 just tweeted a video: “Eight new #murals are beautifying @Downtown_Tucson thanks to a generous grant from the Tohono O’odham Nation.”

Tucson Mural Program (you can click there to view the video fullscreen) from City of Tucson on Tucson 12 via Vimeo.