Chicago Store murals gone for good?

The Chicago Store, at 130 E. Congress, for years has had music inside and outside. Inside — as Mayor Jonathan Rothschild said in an interview (see below), the store “buys, sells, rents, trades and repairs all sorts of instruments from kazoos to pianos.” On two of the three outside walls were murals of musicians (photos above and below), of a Tucsonan who died tragically (far too young), as well as a couple of murals in an urban-art style:

	May 9, 2008
	November 23, 2008
	May 29, 2009

When I saw that the building was being refaced, I watched for news of changes. The facade was cleaned, and I waited. A few weeks ago, I found this story on DowntownTucson.org:

Façade Improvement Restores the Pride of 1903 in Chicago Store Building

I rode by the store last week. The walls are Quite White (actually, a light shade of beige or salmon).

The murals were fading, I guess... murals do change... and I understand that people who don't love art like this could have seen the building as an “eyesore.” Tucson moves on. Still — and especially in the story of McKenzie — we've lost a special place to “Façade Improvement.”

Winta Fresh 2013 is Saturday February 2!

On Sunday the 20th, I rode by the amazing mural-lined parking lot for Plush. (You can see it in our October 29, 2012 post.) Around ten people were there painting or watching. I mentioned that this scene looked like the WintaFresh space on North Stone. One of them told me that this year's WintaFresh is coming soon: Saturday the 2nd.

I searched online and found a Tucson Weekly calendar article confirming the date and time (11am - 4pm) and calling this year's event “Tucson's fifth annual Graffiti Expo.” The artist I talked to said that painting costs $50; you get some cans of paint and a space that's yours.

The article says this is “a mural incorporating the work of more than 50 Tucson artists,” but I think that may not be quite true. From what I've understood before — and from another of the artists I talked with on Sunday — these are artists from all over the country who come to Tucson just for this event.

I have a feeling that the 50 artist slots are already taken, but that you can pay $5 to watch it happen. If you can't make it, I'm going to try to be there... expect a full report here on the blog soon after. :)

That's one of the many murals from WintaFresh 2011. If you'd like to see other WintaFresh art, look for 1240 N. Stone in the North of Downtown section of the table of murals.

Update (February 3, 2013): I've uploaded WintaFresh 2013 video (hand-held, unedited, stereo sound) to the TucsonArtInfo YouTube channel.

Have some extra white paint?

Image from pixabay.com

Sometime in February, I'll help to paint a new Tucson mural. (You'll see the story here, of course!) We'll need flat white latex acrylic paint as the base coat (the primer).

If you have some to spare, please either send me email or call me at 520-302-4402. Your paint will be the foundation for part of the Tucson mural scene. Thanks!

Murals for sale (restaurant included)

OK, I admit that I've used a title like that before. Anyway, the former Farmhouse Restaurant building, 660 N. Ocotillo Road in Benson, was for sale when I drove by on January 10th. The main attraction for art lovers is that it's covered with murals.

Here's a view from the southwest (as always, you can click for a larger view):

And the north side:

Both of the large murals are signed in their lower-right corner:

- GORMAN -
2007

Salvador Corona murals at the Bates Mansion

On July 7, 2008, we published photos by Warren V. of the mural on the Stone Avenue side of the Bates Mansion (283 N. Stone near Franklin).

Two days ago, the Arizona Daily Star article by Ernesto Portillo covered that mural, as well as two others (mostly the magnificent mural inside the mansion that's deteriorating). It said that the murals were painted by Mexican artist Salvador Corona, who was active in Tucson until the 1990s.

Here's the other mural that the article mentioned; it's over the north entrance. You might not call it a “mural” because it's not paint on a wall. I grabbed a photo of it on Sunday so you can make up your own mind:

Murals being made, part 11: King Commemoration

Just in time for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Tucson illustrator Sabrina Vincent sent photos of the mural she finished this month. It's at the corner of Columbus & Cooper (just south of Broadway):

The mural is tied together with red scarves — and red yarn, as on the part of the mural around the corner to the left. It's a quote from MLK Jr:

The crossbars on the "t"s are Cupid's arrows — clever, eh? Sabrina is better known as SLOV. Here she (or a fan of hers) appears in the mural:

You can see the mural's progress — from an empty wall, to the finished work I showed first above — on her blog SLOVLY. (She shows this mural in her January 7 entry.)

I think she started painting at the end of November. (That's from the camera data inside her first photos.) The last photo was dated January 2.

Thanks for the mural (and the photos), SLOV!

An Arizona Daily Star story, Tucson Oddity: Fanciful mural greets passers-by (April 1, 2013) tells more of the story.

Yet another mural at 7th & Toole

On December 30th, I posted two different murals on the same corner of 7th & Toole.

Today, as I was going through my backlog of photos, I found yet another mural at that corner — a photo I took on November 21st:

I've added this photo to the middle of that post, but I also wanted to show it here in case you're (trying to :) keep track. I've also added the names of the artists who made those three murals.

Sunflowers on Marana auto shop

Village Automotive of Marana, at 13111 W. Marana Road, got this new sunflower mural in the autumn of 2012. You can read more about Paul Frederick's shop, and see some other fun photos, on the Village Automotive Facebook page (which is where I got the photo; it's near the bottom of the page).

Artistic home and library, part 2 of 2

On January 15th, we showed murals on the walls of the home at 4102 E. Lester. (It's the corner of Lester Street and Justin Lane — one block north of Pima, halfway between Alvernon and Columbus. As always, you can click the address above for a map.)

Today I'll show you the surprise that I mentioned in the home's front yard. First, the front (the south side):

...the back (facing Lester Street):

...and the inside (without some of the books):

The library's roof hadn't been added yet. Also, if you look carefully at the back side (click on the second photo for a larger view), there are tiny letters around the flower. In case you can't see them, here's the beginning:

"If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need."

There's much more. Why not bring stop by the corner, read the back, take a book... maybe leave a book... and enjoy what these dedicated people have given to us through their hard work and their art?

This is a Little Free Library. You can read more about the movement by visiting LittleFreeLibrary.org.

The artist was Judy Ostermeyer. The home's owner is Meg Johnson; she's currently secretary of the Garden District Neighborhood Association.

Meg told me that, as far as she knew at that point, this was the second Little Free Library in Tucson.

I had a very enjoyable conversation with Meg there, next to the library, two months ago — November 20, 2012. (I hope that my notes were correct... I was riding on my bicycle, not expecting to find something like this, and was surprised by what happened next!)

Update (January 26, 2013): Meg Johnson sent new photos. One shows the front with the new roof:

The other is of the back. It has a new Little Free Library sign at the top, as well as the date and Judy Ostermeyer's signature at the bottom:

Thanks again, Meg.

Artistic home and library, part 1 of 2

The home at 4102 E. Lester has murals on the front of the home, along Lester Street, by Pat Redmon (I hope I'm spelling her name right; she's a woodworker) on the left, and by Meg Johnson on the right:

There's also a mural on the wall along Justin Lane. This one is by Pat Redmon:

Out front is a surprise that I'll show in the next post (January 17th).

750 is three-quarters of 1000...

...and this is our 750th post. I save groups of murals for “milestone” posts like this. These murals are on the walls of Western Dental & Orthodontics, 7701 East Broadway.

New at Bentley's

Bentley's House of Coffee & Tea, at 1730 E. Speedway has been a supporter of the arts for as long as I can remember. They've been in Tucson longer than that: since the late 1980s. (One of my favorites is the Tucson Youth Poetry Slam. If you haven't been to a slam before, you should know that this isn't a typical sedate poetry reading: these talented poets write and perform some strong stuff.)

Anyway, on January 6th, Mark Fleming spotted an artist painting a mural on the south end of the east wall:

He didn't catch her name. (If you know, please add a comment below or send me email. I'll eventually stop by or call to ask.) Here's the finished mural (re-photographed on October 7, 2013, by Jerry Peek):

As always, you can click for a larger view. (The yellowish color at the top-left is actually a bit of lens flare from the sun — which was just above the building when I snapped this shot.)

Thanks, Mark!

Update (October 28, 2013): Allison Miller (who painted this mural) also has a new mural in Swanway Park.

New ways to see all of the murals

Do you visit this blog from time to time to see what's new? You can always drop in; I add a new mural (currently) every second day. I've just added a couple of features that can let you find out about new murals as soon as they're added.

At the top of the right column are new boxes like the ones shown here. The first lets you watch the blog with a feed reader (RSS or Atom). The second sends you email with a copy of each new post — words and photo(s).

Formatting (the arrangement of words and photos) may look different in the emails than on the website. But, if you click on the blog's title (in blue letters) in the email message, it'll take you to the website to see the real post — and also easily find other murals.

However you see this blog, thanks for coming along!

Mailbox mural

My new Tucson Mailbox Art blog has really taken off in the past month. At the rate I'm finding them on bike rides through neighborhoods, I think Tucson may have more fun mailboxes than murals (and Tucson must have at least 1,000 murals!). If it sounds interesting, please click over and have a look.

The January 5th entry has a mailbox post that's painted like a mural.

Changes around 7th & Toole, part 4 of 4

This post has a new angle on two of the other murals from this series (December 30th and January 3rd) near the corner of 7th & Toole. It also shows a new (and likely very temporary) “mural” near the railroad crossing on 7th Avenue — at the bottom right of the photo below:

Murals are usually painted on (or, at least, attached to) a wall. This one was just sitting there, propped against a phone pole, when I rolled by on a bike ride December 25th. Maybe it's on a building by now?

Changes around 7th & Toole, part 3 of 4

In 2008, the corner of 7th & Toole used to have just one mural behind some garbage. Then a tagger trashed the mural. :(

Now, five years later, the corner is packed with murals. In this third of four posts about the corner in 2012, here's a look at the big roll-up steel door on the east corner of the southeast side of the building at the north corner of that intersection. (It's across 7th Avenue from the formerly-trashed mural.)

On February 3rd of last year, I took a photo of a mighty locomotive painted on that door by Ed Muren III. On December 25, I noticed two small murals on either side of the door:

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

Changes around 7th & Toole, part 2 of 4

We showed two murals on Borderlands Brewing Company, 119 E. Toole, in our post on October 7, 2012. I took those photos in June.

When I rolled by on October 18, I saw that the murals had changed. For some reason, the one on the northwest side had a multicolored door in front of it:

The other one, on the northeast side (along the tracks), wasn't black-and-white anymore:

Finally, let's jump ahead to December 25, 2012: one week ago. The mural on the northwest side had been cut away to give access to the loading dock:

Changes around 7th & Toole, part 1 of 4

The mural on the southeast wall of BLX (on the northern corner of 7th & Toole) was of five faces on May 28.

When I rode my bicycle by that same spot four and a half months later — on October 18 — the scene had changed:

So that mural was painted sometime between May 28 and October 18. (I found out later that the artist was Tommy Chambers.)

November 21, I saw a different mural here. This one (I found out later) was by Yerba:

On a long ride (after a big Christmas dinner :) December 25, I found yet another new mural on that corner. The mural follows the same theme, blocks, and also has a head at the left side facing into the mural, but looks completely different otherwise. Muralist John Flood painted this one:

Murals change. Years change. Happy 2013! I'll continue this series on January 1.

October to December at 6th & Toole

The building on the northwest corner of this three-street intersection (I've been calling it the northeast corner in earlier posts; gotta fix that!) is always changing. Like an artist painting over an old canvas and starting again, old murals are wiped out and new ones pop up. (You can see earlier incarnations on the Downtown-University section of the table of murals. It currently isn't completely up to date, but there are no missing entries for 6th & Toole.)

When I rolled by on October 18th, almost all of the southwest and south sides (except Skrappy's and the Toole Shed) had been painted white...

...and there was just one new mural on top of the fresh white. It's hidden behind the right side of the tree in the photo above:

Now let's jump ahead to December 20th. Mara Pierce wrote to tell me about a new mural on the southeast side of the building. It was painted by her students. On the 25th, I rode over to have a look.

First I noticed that some of the lamp posts along the east side of 6th Avenue had been painted. (Maybe they've been that way for quite a while? I've been paying more attention to the building than to the posts.) Here's the view from east of 6th:

(Most of the white area on the rest of the building — see the first photo above — has been painted red. I think we need to watch that empty white space at the top of the southern corner.) Here's a closeup of the new mural Mara told me about:

The "NO CLASS" is made from snippets of typewriter-style letters. I didn't look closely enough while I was there, but I'm pretty sure they're HB 2281. You can click on the photo for a larger view to see that and other panels more clearly.

Thanks, Mara, for letting me know! Also, thanks to your students (and your coaching) for the art.

Rialto in progress (Murals being made, part 10)

For years now, the north end of the east side of the Rialto Theatre (318 E. Congress) has had an ever-changing series of murals announcing concerts there. When I rode by on December 25th (Congress Street is partly re-opened now, by the way!), I saw something different there. It didn't look like the previous multi-panel concert announcement murals.

(To see more of them — though we didn't catch them all! — look for the above address in the Downtown-University section of the table of murals) or type rialto into the Search box at the right side of this page.)

Here's the new mural I spotted yesterday...

...and a close-up of (most of) the right panel (not including some of the side that's behind the rusty-iron planter):

You can see a grid with numbers at the bottom, and the outline of something at the right side.

The man holding the sign at the right end has been there for a lot of the murals Joe Pagac has painted, I'm guessing that this mural is Joe's too. We'll see after he (and/or whoever else) signs it.

(To see more of Joe's work, type Joe Pagac into the Search box. He also has a new website. And, of course, you can look for his work with a search engine like Bing or Google; try their Image Search feature.)

I met an artist yesterday outside the Solar Culture gallery who pointed out Joe Pagac's studio a bit farther along the same building, at 19 E. Toole. I'll try to catch him in person sometime soon. Stay tuned for a report!

News from Mary's street

A gloomy, cloudy day (October 11, 2012, when I took the photos below) is kind of appropriate for this holiday blog entry. I was near Glenn & Country Club on that gray day two months ago, and I decided to brighten things up by visiting some of my favorite murals in Tucson on Mary's street (at 2939 E. Monte Vista... click there for an aerial view from Google Maps).

As I rode in on my bike, I realized that I hadn't photographed the east side of the house. Here's what I saw:

The left side of that photo is on my 2010 blog post, but I hadn't included the wall on the right (east) side. The house, in the background, looked really interesting. So I walked along the east wall to check it out. What I found was...

...overgrowth, no water in the swimming pool, peeling paint... how sad. At that point in time, though, I didn't know why the creatively-painted home looked run-down.

Fast-forward to December 18th — six days ago. I got email from Blogger saying that someone named Crystal had commented on the 2010 post. She'd also sent me a personal email message. I approved the comment and also posted a reply. (If you didn't notice them, you can jump to the comments by clicking there.) I was happy to know the story of another mural in Tucson [so many murals have no story, not even the artist name(s)]... but I was saddened to read that Crystal's mother Mary had been evicted from the home that she'd painted so lovingly... even worse, near Christmas. Crystal says that her mother is struggling to find a place to live.

She also told me about Mary's Facebook photo page filled with her mom's exuberant art. Please have a look!

I drove by the home again two days ago (the 22nd) to take some photos for Crystal and her family (including Mary). There was a passenger truck in the driveway, so I guessed that someone has moved in — and that Mary is out for good. If you know better, though — or you have any advice for artists who've been kicked out of their homes — please email me or post a comment below; I'll send your news on to Crystal.

The holidays aren't always joyful :(, but I hope yours are great! Thanks for reading this blog... your interest encourages me to keep doing it.

Update (January 11, 2013): Crystal wrote to say her mother “has received some possible ‘leads’ for some painting jobs and she’s eager to get started.” She asked me if I'd share Mary's phone number: 520 991 5336. And she mentioned Mary's Facebook gallery (click there if you'd like to see it).

Update (March 26, 2013): Mary has been evicted. A message and poem from her daughter Crystal — as well as some photos of their former home — are on today's post, Sad news from Mary's Street.

A porch on North Dodge

In the past five years, I've posted a few murals painted on the front porch of Tucson homes. (I wouldn't post a mural on a home's back porch... we only show art that's visible to the public.) If you'd like to find those murals, type porch into the box titled "Search This Blog" in the right-hand column.

This one is at 1902 North Dodge:

I rolled by on October 16th.

Next door to Frida

On October 2, I was driving west on Prince Road, past the familiar Frida Kahlo mural, when I noticed a new mural just west of there. I pulled in quickly — fast enough to park in front of Frida — and I noticed that her paint was peeling. (I made a note to send email to the muralist. He doesn't live in Tucson.) Then I walked next door to check out this mural:

It's on the fence just west of aQua Salón & Barbería. (I think I got that right... yes, there's a capital Q in the middle of aQua.) There wasn't an address on the front of the hairstyling shop, but I can tell you that it's next door to Carnicería La Noria (which has the Frida mural); the carnicería (a meat market) is at 704 East Prince.

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