This dragon IS a character

Back on December 14, 2016, David Aber posted "Dragons of Character" showing two murals at Homer Davis Elementary.

I stopped by on August 21, 2018, and spotted this cowboy dragon.

Hippie Gypsy still truckin'

Let's look back 11 years to this photo by Warren V. in Tucson Murals Project's 50th Posting!:

There's a link from the end of that post to show murals on the closed window shutter… but somehow we never posted photos of the other side of the building. Luckily, the Cactus Catz blog has many more photos in the September 26, 2018 entry: Wordless Wednesday : Hippie Gypsy.

It's an interesting blog with a Tucson flavor. Have a look!

Residence in Barrio Hollywood

Residence at 1022 West Ontario St. as viewed from North Columbia Ave.  Photo taken on Dec. 11, 2018.

Click on the photo for a larger and sharper image.

Better searching for murals

I've added a new and better way to search for murals. If you're trying to find a mural, look for “Search this blog” near the top right corner of any blog page. You can type a street address, artist name, or whatever.

Monsters and caffeine

The building on 6th Avenue, not far north of 22nd Street, has had wild murals for years. For instance, you can see the same monstrous face back in 2014 in our Tucson Murals Project blog entry …and the south side.

The photo here is from Monday Mural : S. 6th Ave, near 22nd St., Tucson, AZ on the Cactus Catz blog. (Thanks, Mary!) That blog entry starts with a photo of the right end of the mural: a woman sipping coffee. It's quite a mural… click over and have a look!

Artist Michael Schultz and the Open Space Church

Jeff Gardner of Tucson Local Media posted this interesting story about a reformed graffiti artist and a church that includes art in its ministry:

Moving graffiti from the streets to the steeple

Fence Art

I found this very interesting house in South Tucson on Jan. 15, 2019.  The house is at the SW intersection of S. 10th Ave. and W. 25th St.  The north side of the house and fence are seen from W. 25th St.

1540 S. 10th Ave.

Click on the photo for a larger and sharper image.

Downtown Mural Project Update

This is Tucson posted an article online March 29th by Andrea Pittenger with news about the latest murals that should grace downtown by June 1st:

Downtown Tucson is getting 4 new murals this spring

Yesterday, the Arizona Daily Star posted a bunch of pictures of the artists at work:

Photos: More Murals for Downtown Tucson

Railroad car art from Cactus Catz

In February, 2018, Tucson blogger Cactus Catz emailed a link to a post with photos of murals on the side of railroad cars at the Old Pueblo trolley museum. Here's one:

You can see all of them here: Railroad car art.

I hope we'll see more from Cactus Catz this year!

Five striking Tucson murals and their backstories

Here's a link to the story and photos from This is Tucson.

"Sonora"

Completed on Dec. 18, 2018 by Karlito Miller Espinosa, aka Mata Ruda, with the assistance of Analaura Villegas and Brisa Tzintzun.

Photographed on Dec. 27, 2018 on the east side of the Rogue Theatre as viewed from N. Herbert Ave.  I took the photo from a parking lot that can be entered from N. 4th Ave.

The woman is holding a pamphlet titled "Pedagogy of the Oppressed".

"Sonora"

Click on the photo for a larger and sharper image.

Update (April 7, 2019): The December 20, 2018 Arizona Daily Star article A look at some of Tucson's many beautiful murals says:

“A mural titled "Sonora" on the side of the Historic Y building at 300 E. University Blvd. was completed on December 18, 2018. Karlito Miller Espinosa aka Mata Ruda, the artist, teaches an illustration class in the school of art at the University of Arizona. With the help of two of his students, Analaura Villegas and Brisa Tzintzun, he completed the commissioned mural within a week. Espinosa says the mural is a quilt of images that represent some of the different organizations that have offices in the building”

The January 9, 2019 Arizona Daily Wildcat story UA students paint the town with new mural has much more information.

Desert Scene in Barrio Viejo

On May 31, 2009, Jerry Peek posted a mural with the title: Many more murals, no more time...

On Jan. 15, 2019 I photographed a new mural on the same wall:

Desert Scene

Many artists were involved in this project.  Unfortunately, the names are mostly obscured by vegetation.  A fence prevented me from getting a closer look.  I'm guessing the artists were students from a nearby school.

Click on the photo for a larger and sharper image.

"Peace Garden"

Photographed on Dec. 27, 2018 at the Children's Peace Garden in the Manuel Herrera Jr. Park.  The balloon's gondola (next to "A" Mtn.) has the initials JRC which may refer to the artist.

"Peace Garden"

Left End

Middle

Right End

 Click on any photo for a slideshow of larger and sharper images.

"Sugar Hill"

Mural by Tucson Arts Brigade. Sponsored by the Mt. Calvary Baptist Church.  The Sugar Hill neighborhood was one of the few places in Tucson where a black professional could buy a home between WWII and the passage of civil-rights legislation in the '60s.  Eventually, Sugar Hill was absorbed by the Northwest and El Cortez Heights neighborhoods.  A movement has begun to restore the name to the original neighborhood.  However, there is a debate whether the name honors the area or denigrates it.

I took these photos on 12/11/2018. Captions list artists' names from left to right.

The mural is viewed from N. 6th Ave.

Left Side: Teresa Diane Altamirano, Annalisa Loevenguth, David Tineo, Slov (Sabrina Vincent), Tanya Alvarez

Where's a chainsaw when you need it?

Right Side: Delbert Antone, Xaivier Ringer, Jessa Hudgens, Julian Argote, Caressa Wittwer

Complete Mural

 Click on any photo for a slideshow of larger and sharper images.

You can see a larger, sharper and scrollable image of the complete mural here:  Sugar Hill

Update from Jerry Peek (January 29, 2024): I've read (on the Facebook group Tucson Murals and Street Art) that Michael B. Schwartz led this project.

Piñata

Photographed on 12/11/2018 at Rollies Mexican Patio.

Painted by Jonny Balesteros, aka Jonny Bubonik

Click on the photo for a larger and sharper image.

Update (November 8, 2020): The low wall to the left of the piñata has been painted with ¡Hecho en Tucson! (Made in Tucson!). The parking barriers and the sidewalk in front of the piñata are pink:

Murals being (un-)made, Part 30d

Remember that? It was the right end of the long-running mural — and, as it turns out, the long-running mural story that started back on November 9, 2015 with our blog entry Murals being made, part 30a.

Almost four years after I took the first photos showing artist Jason Cross, I drove along that familiar stretch of Alvernon and noticed that my right-side window seemed a lot less colorful. I went around the block and came back for a slower look. Yup, that was the same wall shape (with the unusual two-story-high right end), but it was a chocolate brown. So I came back another day to grab a photo from the median strip. (I walked across!)

I've met the homeowner before. I'm not sure there's a happy end to this story, but I'll try to go by sometime and ask. If it's printable :-/ you'll see an update below.

Hotel McCoy in progress: 9/12/18

I stopped by the hotel on September 12, 2018, as the murals were in progress. For months before then, I'd heard from artists that the murals would be happening. I stopped by to take photos and then, for months, I tried to sort out which of my photos David Aber had captured when he was there. An unfortunate glitch (the memory card fell out of my cell phone!) meant that I had to rely on Google's reduced-quality “cloud” backups instead of the much better photos on that card. So, about a week ago (mid-February 2019), I decided to just post what I had without my usual careful editing. David has posted a number of these — and with much better quality. So please be sure not to miss his blog posts from the past few months. But I hope this blur of photos — basically, first to last as I walked through, with editing just to remove empty space — to get a feel for what was happening on this amazing place almost six months ago.

Some of these are just outlines of murals to come. (I've changed the outlines to monochrome format from color to help bring out detail. The outlines were drawn on walls.) Those murals may have been more finished by the time that Dave got there.

These are from first to last as I wandered through. If I'd tried to coordinate my notes about each photo with the shots themselves, and with which ones Dave posted in ten separate entries, I'll never get these online! So, without the notes, here goes:

(We say anything that's “flat art on a wall” may be a mural. That's actually a door mat standing upside down against a wall — probably draining after being washed. Whatever. :)