Evening at The Presidio

On the south wall of the outdoor Presidio re-creation (officially, it's the Presidio San Agustín del Tucson; you can click there to see the city's official web page), is a long mural showing what the view might have been like there in older times:

(Now — as you can see from the satellite view below — the mural has a parking lot behind it!)

The official address is 133 West Washington, but it covers a big part of the block south of Washington. (You can see a close-up Google Satellite view by clicking there.)

I took this photo near sunset on December 6, 2012. (The gate was closed, but you can see the mural from the street anyway.)

Around the corner at Casa de Ladrillo

When I photographed the “xeriscaping” at 3131 E. Glenn (the photo was posted July 28, 2011), I shot from the east end of the house.

Later — October 16, 2012 — I noticed a little mural on the west end, by the front door:

The ocotillo stalks that the burro might be "carrying" are an artistic way to cover what looks to me like an ugly electrical box next to the door.

Newer near Playground

Back in April, Mark Fleming sent photos of two murals at 272-274 E. Congress by Joe Pagac. On July 20 — according to the data in the photo file, that is — Mark took photos of two different murals in the same spot. The first, between two pillars (walls?) numbered 274 and 272, is titled (in Mark's photo name, at least) A Thing Like Congress St. Doesn't Just Happen Overnight:

Here's the second, just east of the one above:

As you can see (thanks to Mark), the second is by Joe as well as Wendy Van Leuveren.

These are just down Congress from the little park at Congress & Scott (which is the second post on my new Tucson's Pocket Parks blog).

Update (September 29, 2016): I'm sad to write that Wendy Van Leuveren passed away recently. The Tucson Weekly article Remembering Wendy has details (note that some are disturbing).

Maybe a mural, part 48: Doors on Dodge

From time to time, I post a photo of something that you might or might not call a mural. (Some people have stricter definitions than others. On this blog, if it's art and it's generally flat, it probably qualifies.) How about this one?

It's some painted doors and a fence laid along the fence at 2119 N. Dodge, along the north end of the front yard. (Would it be a mural if it were a single piece of wood with painted geometric shapes? I bet it wood — oops, would. :) I rolled by on October 16, 2012.

The previous “maybe” mural was posted June 2nd.

Monet's Muse

As you can read in the first entry on my new blog Tucson’s Pocket Parks, there's a gorgeous mosaic mural around the outdoor dining area at Café à la C’Art. (That's the restaurant on one side of the Tucson Museum of Art grounds, the former first Janos restaurant in Tucson. It's gorgeous inside, too, but we don't show photos of art that isn't open to the public.)

The restaurant was closed when I took these photos on January 16th, and plants were covered against the cold. I'll show these in no particular order... except a plaque with the name of the work and the artist (Monet's Muse by Kathleen Spain, 2010) at the very end.

(And two notes about the quality of the photos: The first photo — of the sculpture — has some perspective distortion; the base of the sculpture isn't tilting “downhill” as it looks here. Most of the photos were taken in open shade during the winter; I've tried to fix the color, but a lot of the color isn't very accurate... so, you'll need to stop by and see this work with your own eyes! :)

Multicolored corner

Whether you're rolling by on a bicycle (as I did on May 11th) or in a car, you can't help but notice this corner:

It's in an art-filled area of town — just behind Tucson High School — at 648 E. 8th Street.

There's a closeup of the mailbox on today's Tucson Mailbox Art posting.

More of the Murals by Jos at Good Ole Tom's

Back on April 26, I posted photos of Jos Villabrille’s work in progress (and a couple of Jos doing the work) at the new Good Ole Tom’s location just east of Wilmot on Broadway.

One week ago (August 24), Mark Fleming sent his photos of this gorgeous building. As always, Mark: Thanks from me and from everyone who enjoys this blog.

Let's see them! First, though, I'll re-post my photo of the front of the store back in April.

Front (south wall)

Back (north wall)

East wall

This first photo shows the front (left side) of the east wall. The second photo shows the rest of it:

West wall

I don't have a good overall photo of the west wall, but I can tell that some of these photos are from there. If you notice that any of the others below belong to a different wall, please send me email so I can move them. (Thanks!)

One more detail...

Tramp's Auto Repair (!)

I found this mural September 13, 2012 on Tramp's Auto Repair, 4101 E. 29th:

(I saw it again a month or so ago.) It's painted on the closed garage doors. When Tramp's is open, the doors are too — with real cars inside. What fun!

Rock Martinez and Odie painted the doors. Here are photos from CyFi's (Rock's) website.

Paste-ups on Melwood Ave.

Mark Fleming sent photos of two paste-ups on a derelict building at the corner of West Congress Street and North Melwood Avenue:

The photos’ EXIF data (the hidden info in a digital photo file) says that Mark took these on August 17. The second one was already peeling... so, if you want to check them out in person, go soon!

Thanks, as always, Mark.

Mexicayotl Academy

Mark Fleming just sent these photos of the gorgeous murals at 667 North 7th Avenue.

Thanks, as always, Mark!

Update (May 18, 2015): The murals have faded, as you can see in today's entry.

Changes at the top :)

Long-time readers of this blog have gotten used to a header that looked like this:

I've simplified that. I've moved the info from that former header to the top right corner of every page — in a page titled Send your photos!

On the road in Deming, NM

I've been traveling back and forth between Albuquerque and Tucson — which is part of why I haven't been posting many murals! I spotted this one while I was pulled off I-10 in Deming, New Mexico. It's behind an empty lot along Gold Street, halfway between Pine Street and I-10... click there for a satellite view from Google.

(By the way, Deming's cheapest gas stations tend to be along the western part of Pine, which parallels I-10 a couple of blocks to the south.)

Update: On October 30, 2013, the sequel: Hatch (NM) Hijinks.

Slow summer (sorry...)

Mural lovers: If I've left you moaning “more murals!”... well, I'm trying to get back to this blog. I've been too busy this past month or two to keep this volunteer project (almost 850 posts over the past seven years) going by myself.

Now I'm headed out on a much-needed vacation. But, first, I'm back for a bit — with another post from my big mural photo archive. Today's mural is humble: either faded from a long spell under the sun... or never finished in the first place...

What do you think happened here? I found it on September 13, 2012 along the east wall of 4842 E. 26th — on the Santa Rosa side.

I'll be back in August! (And I may be able to sneak in a couple of much greater murals in the next week or so.)

Thanks for following...

Back to the archive...

If you've been following this blog for a while, you've seen that some of the photos I post are recent; others are older. I try to keep a fresh “mix” with some new photos and some older shots. This is the oldest one I have, from ten months ago: September 3, 2012.

This is on the playground wall on the southeast corner of Tucson Chinese Christian Church, 307 East Helen.

Murals being made, part 20: Jos at Tucson Mall

You'll catch busy Jos Villabrille painting murals all over town. This spring, I found Jos (and met him for the first time) as he painted the new Good Ole Tom's location at Broadway & Wilmot. A couple of weeks ago, I met him on River Road. Yesterday, I was walking into a southwestern entrance to Tucson Mall. (Click there for a Google Map showing the mall, with a green arrow at the spot where the first — geotagged — photo was taken.)

This “murals being made” series shows any mural I find around Tucson that's in the process of being painted. (If you want to see more of the series, type murals being made into the search box at the right side of any page.) Jos seems to be working all around Tucson! He wasn't at Tucson Mall when I walked by his murals yesterday. I snapped a couple of photos, anyway.

The mural on the map above — the one nearest the entrance — looked only part-finished yesterday (around noon Friday):

The mural facing the parking lot looked finished — to my eyes, at least:

Thanks, Tucson Mall (and Jos!) for more great Sonoran Desert murals.

Los Amigos Childcare and Activity Center

On August 25 of last year, I photographed these murals wrapping around Los Amigos Childcare & Activity Center, 1300 W. St Marys at Melrose. I started from the southwest corner to the northeast corner of the mural-covered building. Some of the shots are overall; others are close-ups.

The work is signed By Alexander Reyes.

(P.S. The larger versions you get when you click on a photo used to be 1024 pixels wide (or high). I've found that Blogger doesn't charge extra for sizes of 800 pixels or smaller. So, from now on, most of the big photos will be a bit smaller. But I'm always glad to send full-resolution photos of mine to anyone who needs them. All of my mural photos are public-domain... though other photographers may keep copyright; we'll need to ask their permission.)

The mural behind the Anita Street mailbox

On January 5th, on the Tucson Mailbox Art blog, I posted photos of a stuccoed mailbox post hand-painted with angels and plants at 632 North Anita Avenue. Behind this beautiful mailbox was a mural on the front wall of the home:

I was there on August 22, 2012.

Más de Davis Bilingual School

Back on May 25, 2009, we posted a couple of photos of this art-covered school. Back then, at least, it was named Davis Bilingual Learning Center. I'm not sure of the latest taste in school names, so I'll just call it Davis Bilingual School. Around the grounds is a lot of art in (naturally enough) both Spanish and English. If you click there, you can see the two photos I posted in 2009. Here are some more from August 22, 2012.

Let's start with a better photo of the the bench I showed in the 2009 post. In the middle of the center of the seat, it's signed Made by Los Artistas de Davis 2004 and also says In Memory of Melissa Gomez.:

A mural in an arch at the northeast side of the school, with a sign saying Dr. Valenzuela 1981-2011, and a close-up of the plaque toward the top:

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

(By the way, there are more mural-filled arches on the south side of the school. You can see some of them in the first photo on the previous post I mentioned.)

Let's finish with a mosaic plaque at the southwest entrance to this art-filled place:

You can see this — and more — at 500 W. St. Marys (corner of Granada). The grounds may may be locked up this summer; I haven't checked. During the year, I'd recommend you check in at the school office before looking around. I got there early in the morning — after the grounds were open, but before the students did.

Update (December 1, 2014): There are even more murals here. See Art(y) school: Davis Bilingual.