35 Must-See Murals in Metro Phoenix

The March 6th Phoenix New Times article by Lynn Trimble has photos and info:

35 Must-See Murals in Metro Phoenix

I honestly try to avoid Phoenix when I can ;-) but I'll be there for an afternoon and a morning next month. I follow Lynn on Twitter… and there defintely is a lot of art in the Phoenix area. (Maybe I'll even decide to go back? :)

Bronx Wash re-re(-re?) visited

This lonngggg mural stretches, panel by panel, along the section of Linden Street east of 4th Avenue. It's an ongoing project. David Aber stopped by on on April 17, 2017. He snapped the newest panels on that date at the western end of the mural in a left to right, east to west direction:

“Rebirth” by Emma Bayne:

"La Paz" by Nikki Ortiz:

Untitled by Sneha Srinivasan. Her description of her work includes the words “Kindness, Hope and Love” which David has used as the title on his Flickr post. ("Yes," he said, "I spelled her name correctly."):

An untitled work in progress by Teresa Altamirano (finished by now, I'd guess):

For more photos from this blog, take a look at:

• Beautiful Bronx Wash (March 14, 2011)
• Bronx Wash mural revisited, part 1 of 3 (December 19, 2016)
• Murals being made, part 42: Bronx Wash addition (December 21, 2016)
• Bronx Wash mural (complete), part 3 of 3 (December 23, 2016)

Even more art at El Rio on Speedway!

If you haven't seen our blog entries from May 02, 2008 and January 23, 2012, they'll give you a good introduction to the great murals at this Community Center. But, in a visit on November 12, 2016, I found more murals. This is another in my series of almost-lost mural photos…

I'll (uncharacteristically :) let the murals speak for themselves:

(Not) Mural Lovers, part 4: One of Tucson's largest ruined

I remember the days when taggers didn't trash murals. It's so sad that these animals seem to be spraying their hatred (or fear?) onto the art that almost all of us (not including the taggers) love.

Tucson News Now reported on Friday: Artist to repair twice-tagged mural. This is Joe Pagac's huge mural on Stone just north of 6th. You can see the first tagging in our July 2, 2017 entry !*?%&#= TAGGERS!!.

Joe originally covered the mural with a clear protective coat, but it'll apparently still take him 8-12 hours to repair the tags.

Making the Himmel library more inviting

Next in our series of almost-lost murals…

It was November 11, 2016. I'd read about the neighborhood-sponsored beautification of the Himmel Park library, so I stopped by with my camera.

One of the changes was the new bicycle rack outside the front door, which is topped by signs lettered with bicycle chains — such as “STUD.” (At least I thought that's what it said. Actually, I just now zoomed in on the photo. I can see that there's a “Y” at the end, made with a much darker piece of chain. What a shame. :)

Out front are mosaic-topped benches:

Here are close-ups of the bench tops:

Why not fifth-anniversary photos?

Every time my inbox begins to fill with mural (and mailbox art) photos, I double-check to be sure I've put each photo online before I delete the email that had the photo. So, back in December, I was surprised to see a message from Mark Fleming that he'd sent to Randy Garsee, this blog's founder. Randy sent it on to me that same day — February 25, 2013. My email program shows that I replied to Randy right away. But I don't remember ever posting these murals. (Mea culpa! Still, it can be tough to keep track of well over 1,000 murals.)

Anyway, I decided to wait for the five-year delay between Mark sending the photos and them going online. Somehow it didn't feel urgent to rush them online a month or two earlier. Still, I'm sorry for the long delay, Mark.

It was back on November 22, 2014 that I spotted Rock "Cyfi" Martinez’ mural on the north side of BreakOut Studios, 828 North Stone:

But, unlike Mark Fleming, I didn't check the alley behind the building.

I'm not sure that I got all of the photos? So I'll post them in the order that Mark sent them. The first two seem to be side-by-side, but I'm not sure about the third.

Mark wrote that the murals seem to be “by Alex Devowon and someone named 'oddeven'.”

Update (February 23, 2018): Thanks to ArtLoungeProductions (@artloungetuc on Twitter) for helping me find that BreakOut Studios has moved to East Speedway. Their website is breakoutstudiostucson.com and their Twitter feed is @BreakOutStudios. I'll have to stop by and check for new murals!

Murals being (not quite) made, Part 30c

I've been working through every one of my photos taken since early 2016. Along the way, I found some mural photos that haven't been posted to this blog yet. I showed the first of them on January 26; I'll show the rest in the next few blog entries.

I've been waiting for this mural. I first found it on March 7, 2015, as artist Jason Cross was painting what would turn out to be one of at least two or three versions. That first blog entry is Murals being made, part 30a; I posted it on November 9, 2015.

I drive by the wall from time to time. As it turned out, on November 8, 2015 — just the day before Part 30a was scheduled to be posted — I noticed some changes. So I took photos and posted them a week later, on November 16, as Murals being made (not finished), part 30b. Here's the last photo from that blog entry:

Next, two photos of the middle and the right end being changed (I think!) on May 2, 2016. The colors aren't very accurate:

Since then, I've driven by and haven't noticed any obvious changes except that the north (right) end is completely different from the version I showed above. So I decided to add this blog entry, Part 30c. Here's the photo of the right end that I took on October 25, 2016:

I haven't noticed any changes in nearly a year and a half since then. A lot of the mural elements have white space between them and the background. Maybe the artist is planning more changes, too? If I do spot any obvious changes as I drive by at 35 mph, I'll add Part 30d.

Update (March, 2019): Last month, on a stormy February 3rd, I drove along this familiar part of Alvernon and noticed that the mural was no more. You can see what's (probably) the end of the story in Murals being (un-)made, Part 30d.