Joe Pagac's Borderlands Brewing mural

On April 1, we showed Joe Pagac finishing Borderlands Brewing mural. I rode right over to see it on the 5th. It's one of Tucson's biggest murals, filled with Western vistas and humans in animals' bodies. Here's the mural in its surroundings:

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

Let's move in closer and look at the two halves:

Close-ups of the animal-people, left to right:

Amazing work, Joe.

Update (May 26, 2015): David Aber sent photos of the mural. He pointed out that the top and bottom parts don't seem to line up:

Maybe by walking over to the edge of the mural, so you see the two parts at an angle, they might match up? Interesting.

Update (December 19, 2015): David Aber wrote:

Back in May, you and I had a discussion about Joe Pagac’s mural on the Borderlands Brewing Building. We couldn’t get the upper and lower parts of the mural to line up.....but this guy can:

Surreal Fantasy Mural Panorama <<>> Tucson's Warehouse Arts District

Update (December 24, 2015): David Aber sent email to artist Joe Pagac about the alignment issue. Joe wrote back:

Hey!

Glad you like the mural so much! I'm working on a few more in the neighborhood that should be done soon. To answer your question, the pieces do line up when viewed from the center of the mural standing on the north side of the tracks (see attached photo). I wanted to find a way to fill the whole space so the upper tier is a bobcat on the mesa sneaking up on the baby quail with their mother about to pitch some dynamite at it. It makes it a bit confusing as you walk around it... But those were the walls I had to work with. Hope that answers your question!

Joe

Update (November 5, 2018): Today's Cactus Catz blog entry has more photos: Monday Mural : Joe Pagac’s Borderlands Brewery mural, Tucson, Arizona.

Update (February 17, 2022): BG Boyd Photography, which specializes in photos from drones, sent this panoramic aerial view:

(The building wall has two flat parts angled, as you can see in the first photo. There's also a small section of wall above, set back a ways. The whole mural appears curved in the panorama.) Thanks as always, BG!

Rock Martinez at 6th & Toole

Rock Martinez is one of Tucson's best-known muralists. Nicole Hennig caught him on video, using Periscope, repainting one of the panels next to the 6th Street underpass from Toole Avenue. Periscope encourages vertical videos, so most of this frame (on YouTube) is black:



You can see some of the Periscope chatter and hear Nicole replying to subscribers.

I rode my bike to get a closeup on Sunday the 4th — three days ago.

I'll put a photo of the finished mural online ASAP!

Fourth annual Park Place Chalk Art Festival

The fourth annual Park Place Chalk Art Festival was this past weekend, March 31 & April 1. I stopped by to take photos and videos around 8 or 9 am on Monday the 2nd. Here's the sign (in chalk, of course) in front of the north central mall entrance:

And a map with artists' names (as always, you can click on an image for a larger view):

There were two kid zones (shown in yellow on the map above): one at the westernmost end of the mall, and one along the northeast entrance to the mall (which had rows of murals on both sides of the walkway).

Let's start at the west end:

Two videos of this end:


westernmost Kid Zone (by Katie Cooper)


westernmost Kid Zone (by Katie Cooper)

On to the northeast mall entrance:

And two videos:


Kid Zone on west side of northeast mall entrance (by Meghan Minke)


Kid Zone on east side of northeast mall entrance (by Meghan Minke)

You can see these videos in larger sizes, and more videos, on the TucsonArtInfo YouTube channel.

Between the two Kid Zones were the murals by professional artists. Here they are, from west to east.

Holly Schineller

Carolyn Watson Dubisch

Victor Manuel Navarro-Sandoval

Ruben Moreno

Martín Quintanilla

Jose Ignacio Garcia

Matt Cotten

Marisa Salazar

(Sorry, didn't do my usual editing to straighten them. I did try to fix the blue color on murals in the shade.)

Thanks to SAACA for organizing. I can't wait for next year!

Joe Pagac finishing Borderlands Brewing mural

The Tucson muralist tweeted Sunday night from @JoePagac that he'd almost finished a new mural on the side of Borderlands next to the tracks:

Finishing up at Borderlands Brewery! pic.twitter.com/ZJH6TQgRt8

— JoePagac (@JoePagac) March 30, 2015

Now @borderlandsbeer has tweeted a photo of the finished mural. It's not a very good photo, so — for now — I'll let you click there to see it on Twitter. (Or stop by in person! It's on the wall next to where 7th Avenue crosses the tracks.) I have photos of the mural in progress; I'll post them, and a photo of the finished mural, sometime in the next month or so.

If you'd like to see what was there before, have a look at Behind Borderlands.

Update (April 22, 2015): On April 10th, we showed the finished mural. I've set that link to open in a new window or tab on your browser to (I hope!) help you compare the finished mural to the photos below of the mural in progress on February 27th. First, the mural overall... then shots of the left and right ends:

I didn't do my usual careful editing, but I think you can still see which parts Joe did first as you compare the photos to the ones from April.

Cesar Chavez murals

On Tucson’s Cesar Chavez holiday (his birthday is actually tomorrow), here are the commemorative murals we've posted over the years — and one more.

• The Legacy of Cesar Chavez (March 25, 2008)
• Over I-10 on Sixth Avenue (September 20, 2011)
• Chavez, Gandhi, Tolstoy and Tonan (August 27, 2012)

There's also a photo of a mural in the May 21, 2014 Downtown Tucsonan article Paulo Freire Freedom School to Offer New Public Downtown Middle School this Fall.

If you know of others, please leave a comment below. And enjoy our new city holiday!

¡Llévelo con Ramón!

At the northeast corner of East 28th St. and South 4th Avenue is Arizona Radiator and Muffler Service. They're just waiting for you to bring your car in with an overheated radiator or broken brakes:

Toward sunset on February 11th, I rolled by — with no car problems, at least not yet.

Maybe a mural, part 62: Spirals on South 28th

In South Tucson, just south of the boundary with the city of Tucson (which is at 25½th Street), is a canvas (painted with acrylics, I think) hanging on the wall. It's on 28th Street, just west of 4th Avenue. (Mi Nidito, the popular restaurant, is about a block away.)

Because it's not painted directly on the wall, I've made this part of our “maybe a mural” series. I took the photo on February 11.

Amphi Neighborhood History Mural

The Tucson Mural Arts Program works with Tucson youth to, as their blog (below) says, “to have the children and teens participate in [murals] to help them get involved and help build healthy, safe, compassionate and vibrant neighborhoods, increase literacy, reducing violence and beautify the places they live and work.” In 2013, one of their programs was a new mural on the north side of Woods Memorial Library. (The library already has “flying books” public art.)

Their blog tells part of the story — see part 1 and part 2. Here's the mural, in a photo I took January 9, 2015. As always, you can click for a larger view:

(There's another Amphi history mural in Amphi Art and Mural Club Creates Public Art. I'll aim to take a photo and post it online later this year.)

So fine on South Vine

We've seen work by Jenna Francine Tomasello in Ghost of Artemis, as well as Main & University #1 and Main & University #2, those last two along with Wesley Fawcett Creigh.

Jenna also sent me photos of murals that she painted on parts of a private home that you can see from the street. (We don't show murals in completely private locations.) Here they are:

Building or mural?

When you're sitting in front of Tokyo Imports, it's hard to tell — except for the front door and a drainpipe opening — whether you're looking at a building or a mural. The mural covers the entire front:

I was there, dazed and confused ;-), on January 9th.

IncrediblAlley

On January 22nd, we showed a bunch of David Aber's photos of Una cuadra llena de arte (an art-filled block) in South Tucson: the 3600 block of South 7th Avenue. But Dave sent more photos! He wrote:

On Jan. 22, photos were posted to the Murals Project from the 3600 block of S. Seventh Ave. All of these photos were in front, or to the side, of 3649 S. Seventh Ave. This is the headquarters of Tierra Y Libertad Organization (TYLO). Note that the acronym TYLO is embedded in each of the two main murals. Here is a link for further info: blog.whyhunger.org/2012/02/visiting-tierra-y-libertad-organization-in-tucson-az/.

In the alley behind TYLO there is a block wall that begins at TYLO and runs north to W. Veterans Blvd., a distance of 175 paces and at least 350 ft. It is filled with art.

I believe that all of the art in the alley is connected with TYLO in one way or another. I have no proof other than the acronym TYLO appears on the wall twice. Also, I consider the art to be one continuous mural. There’s no question that multiple artists worked on the project or that there are multiple themes. However, there was little or no attempt to distinguish where one artist’s work ends and another begins.

With thanks to Dave's explanation of these 17 photos, here's the TYLO alley!

Murals being made, part 27: Repainting the Rialto

This time-lapse video shows Joe Pagac and crew painting a new mural on the northeast corner of the Rialto Theatre. He posted it on February 27th.

Our 1,000th post: Jos at Park Place mall

Eight and a half years have gone by since our first entry on The Tucson Murals Project — July 12, 2006. Randy Garsee, the longtime Tucson TV news anchor who founded this blog, wanted to spread the news about Tucson's murals. Now, you'll find one thousand entries here — and more than 1,000 murals, since some entries show more than one mural. There are plenty more to come!

In post #1000, we'll take a look at spectacular murals by one of Tucson's most prolific muralists, Jos Villabrille. He painted three-dimensional Sonoran Desert scenes — most of them two-sided — at the ends of Park Place mall concourses. Let's start with the southeast entrance, near unit 270:

Looking up from underneath shows how three-dimensional these murals are. See the prickly pear blossoms and the hummingbird's wing?

Next, the west end: first, entering Macy's and next, leaving it:

On to the south center, entering the food court:

And, last, the east end: entering Sears and leaving it:

I took the photo tour on February 5th. Next time, we'll start our second thousand entries!

Main & University #2

That's another mural painted (but not designed) by Wesley Fawcett Creigh and Jenna Francine Tomasello. I took the photo on January 9.

There's more of Wesley and Jenna's work on our Monday entry.

Update (February 5, 2017): I was back at this corner on May 14, 2016, and found four murals of running dogs; this mural was gone. I think that at least this mural here has changed again since early 2015. I'm just posting our entry Main & University #3; it'll go online March 6, 2017. I'll show all four dog murals then.

Main & University #1

This mural of five running dogs was designed by Jenna Francine Tomasello and Wesley Fawcett Creigh. I took the photo on January 9.

Thanks for the tip, Jenna! (There's more of Jenna's work on our January 9th entry, and even more of hers and Wesley's this coming Thursday.)

2012 story about Joe Pagac

I just ran across a story on the Tucson Local Media site about one of Tucson's best-known muralists. It's titled Magic Pagac painting. (By the way, Joe's last name rhymes with “magic.”)