BG Boyd's latest Tucson mural video

BG Boyd Photography has lots of photos and videos (many taken from drones) of Tucson murals. BG posted his video Tucson Murals 10 last week, June 15:



Here's a link to see the video in another window: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atfAlD5StOY.

Goodbye, Sonoran Brunch Company: inside

As I wrote in the previous post Goodbye, Sonoran Brunch Company: outside, Sonoran Brunch Company has closed and its murals are gone. I found Ken Kroeger, who took the photos below, on the Facebook group Tucson Murals and Street Art. The restaurant was tiny, so this mural by Jessica Gonzales must have been overwhelming(ly beautiful)!

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

Next, three “close-ups” I made by cropping areas of the photo above:

Thanks so much for preserving this mural, Ken.

Goodbye, Sonoran Brunch Company: outside

I'm sad to say that Sonoran Brunch Company has closed and its murals are gone. It was a tiny restaurant that supported local artists. Ken Kroeger, who took the photos I'll show in a minute, wrote on the Facebook group Tucson Murals and Street Art:

One of the first things that Kenny and Niki King, the owners of Sonoran Brunch Company, did when they opened in 2019 is had Jessica Gonzales paint a large mural on the inside of the old Poco and Mom's {New Mexican restaurant], that was three years ago. For being a rather small local business they believed in supporting the Tucson Mural Scene and had two more large murals [outside] done by Danny Martin and Serena Rios McRae.

A little more than two years after the Covid-19 outbreak upended life in the world, SBC sadly shut its doors.

We showed Danny Martin's mural on October 29, 2019. It was painted on a metal storage container located just south of the restaurant. David Aber also spotted a truck painted by Danny Martin; we posted it in Mobile Mural.

On January 20 of this year, Ken Kroeger took photos of two halves of the metal storage container. It had been repainted by Serena Rios McRae of Cactus Clouds Art. (Bookmans on Speedway tweeted April 27th about Serena Rios McRae, who was there April 29: “Serena focuses her artistic energy towards uplifting women. Her intimate relationship with the desert inspires her watercolors and other works.”) She turned it into a monsoon storm raining food:

(The first photo, of the left half, is wider than the second photo, of the right half. So the second photo seems to be taller, but it's actually the same height.)

A few details:

This is the kind of monsoon I'm waiting for. :)

When I stopped by on June 7, all that was left of the storage container was a light spot on the pavement:

I (Jerry Peek) have always wanted to make an online list of local businesses that support Tucson artists — for instance, painting murals or hanging artists' art on their walls. There's too little time and too much art! If you know of a list like this that already exists, or have the determination and stamina to maintain a list like that, please use the contact form in the right column of this blog; I'll spread the word!

CYFI in Dubai

Tucson's own Rock Martinez (CYFI) paints all over the world. I just found this mural — a tribute to the Colombian singer Shakira — on his Instagram account @cyfione. It's at the restaurant called Soul Street in Dubai, United Arab Emirates (if you haven't heard of Dubai, click there for a Google Map).

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by CYFI (@cyfione)

(To see another part of the mural, on a computer click the arrow in the circle at the right edge; on a phone, swipe. Notice CYFI on the car's license plate.)

Here's info I found on https://soul.st/about/: “Soul Street is a restaurant in Dubai that promotes street art. The eclectic mix of street art, graffiti and pop-art throughout, has been designed by five of the hottest street artists from around the globe. All murals embody the heart and soul of the street food styles represented within the restaurant.”

Congrats, CYFI, for being called one of “five of the hottest street artists from around the globe.”

Corner With Charm II

This mural begins on the north wall of the residence at 268 E. Delano St.  The mural then turns the corner onto the east wall along north Fontana Ave.  A previous mural along this same wall appeared here: Corner with charm.

This first part of the mural is on the front wall (north) of the house at 268 E. Delano St.

The following parts are on the east wall along N. Fontana Ave.

The artist is not known.

Click on any photo for a slideshow of larger images.

Mural mystery tours: StemAZing

A traditional mural tour has a photo of each mural along the route. The STEMAZING Tucson mural tours have a fun twist: photos that show the area around the mural, but with the mural itself blanked out. For example:

The photos come from Google Street View. The Director of The STEMAZING Project, in the the Pima County School Superintendent's Office, is DaNel Hogan (click there to read about her). She sent me the story of the project:

I spend quite a lot of time putting the Tucson Mural Quest together for a workshop for teachers we did called STEM Quest: A Colorful Exploration of Perception. As we have so many and a growing number of murals in Tucson, it already needs updating. I have really focused on what I call the walkable zone – the murals on 4th Ave and Downtown Tucson. I need to add a few more I missed but there are over 60 murals along about a five mile walk, as I am sure you know. … I call mine the only “no spoilers” mural guide. I am planning to add mural keys to each one when I get a chance. These are close up images of a piece of the mural so folks can be even more certain they have found the right one.

Here's a link to the Tucson Mural Quest page:

    https://stemazing.org/mural-quest/

(STEM stands for “Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math.”) Happy hunting!

BG Boyd's amazing mural database

Aerial and ground photographer BG Boyd takes videos and photos from drones and from land. If you've been reading this blog for a while, you've seen some of his work.

When he answered a question on Facebook, I saw that he'd linked to a part of his website I'd forgotten about. It's a searchable database of 150+ murals he's photographed. The top looks like this (click if you'd like a larger view):

The top level of the database is here:

    https://bgboydphoto.com/murals

I keep coming across more collections of Tucson murals. I'm aiming to post another one tomorrow. If you have any favorites, please use the "Contact Us" boxes at the right margin of this blog to let us know.

Uncle Bob's Fourth Mural

Uncle Bob repairs VWs and sells used ones.

The mural on E. Glenn St. at N. Stone Ave. has appeared in this Blog on three other times in 2008,  2010 and 2012

Here is the current mural followed by two detailed views:

Unfortunately, the artist is not known.

Click on any photo for a slideshow of larger images.

Strange Pack Animals And Cargo

The mural is on the south wall of Beyond Cabinets as seen from E. Broadway Blvd.  "The houses-on-javelinas are a tribute to the relocating of some historic bungalows as the widening work on Broadway just east of downtown continues..."

By Porter McDonald

Click on the photo for a larger image.

ULTM Clothing

ULTM Clothing, which occupies half of the building at 3919 S. 12th, has a mural that I'm showing in three pieces here, from left (north) to right (south):

I was there on April 3rd, a mural-hunting trip along South 12th.

If you think it's hot in Tucson...

…the capital of our neighbor to the south — Hermosillo, Sonora — may be hotter. The thermometer that's blowing its top is part of a mural along Calle Pino Suárez.

Like most of the rest of the world, Mexico uses temperatures in Celsius. A temperature of 20C is 68F. A temperature of 66C, as this thermometer showed before it blew its top, is 150F. Hmmm.

The thermometer is at the left edge of the city map mural below.

And that mural is at the right (closest) end of a mural gallery, partly hidden behind a tree:

The sign on the barrier in front of the parking lot translates as “Sure, there will be sun tomorrow.”

I was there on March 29th when the temperature was only 27C. (I don't know what it will be today, but I'm glad I'm in “cool” Tucson now!)

Meat, bread, tortillas, and deer dancers

A long strip mall along South 12th Avenue has two stores at the same address: Mercadito La Unica, which sells meat, bread, and tortillas; and Alejandro's Tortilla Factory, which makes… you guessed it. I stopped by on April 3rd because I'd taken a bus to Mexico from the same shopping center during March, and I'd noticed the murals and signs interspersed across the top of the businesses:

The man's head with a deer's head on top looked familiar. Oh, I remember: I rode a bus from the Tucson location of the Mexican bus company Tufesa, farther along the same shopping center. Tufesa's logo is a deer dancer:

I asked a friend about that. He said it's a deer dancer (in the Yaqui language, maso). I searched online and found that the deer dance is part of the culture in Sonora and Arizona. In case you're interested, here's some of what I found:

• Images of maso "deer dancer" from DuckDuckGo (a privacy-oriented search engine)
• A Wikipedia page titled Yaqui music that covers the dance in Wikipedia's usual amount of detail
• A page from Encyclopedia Britannica with the first section titled “maso dance: Native American dance”
• A page from the Pascua Yaqui tribe called Ceremonies of the Yaqui with a section titled “The Mazo Kova Pahko (Deer Head) Ceremony” (maybe Mazo is the same as maso?)

I found this sculpture in a shopping area of Hermosillo, Sonora in March 2022.

About the rattles, the Britannica page above says: “In addition to container rattles, Native Americans make rattles from small objects strung together in clusters; these objects include deer hooves, seashells, seeds, seed pods, nuts, fruit pits, …”

End of lesson, class. :)

Cyfi, graffiti writer, ten years between

(Note: The Arizona Daily Star lets non-subscribers read only a couple of its free articles before you need to log in.)

Rock “Cyfi” Martinez travels the world painting murals. He started out in Tucson, years ago, writing illegal graffiti. I just found this 2018 article from the Arizona Daily Star: How Tucson artist Rock Martinez evolved from tagger to muralist

It reminded me of another article I saw years ago. I found it, too, from 2008: Local graffiti artist Cyfi has turned his hobby into a career

In between, Cyfi organized the WintaFresh urban art weekend. It drew artists from all over the US. You can see some of the art over the years in the 1240 North Stone section of this blog's page Layers of murals: histories of a few walls.

Walk across the street for...

…two gorgeous murals by The Desert Pen:

They're across Alvernon from the Randolph Park Recreation Center, at the northeast corner with Calle de Jardin. The big mural is on a wall that runs along a gravel driveway, and the small mural is on the side of the home at the end:

The long mural looks like this from the front of the home:

Let's walk along the mural from near (the north) to far (south):

I took those photos on April 22nd. David Aber spotted the mural and took this photo at sundown on February 28th, while it was being painted:

Cyfi's Linda Ronstadt mural in her Music Hall

Tucson's Rock “Cyfi” Martinez now travels the world painting murals and makes his home in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis / St. Paul. He's come back to Tucson a few times recently. The best-known mural he's painted recently has to be the one inside the newly-renamed Linda Ronstadt Music Hall — formerly the Tucson Music Hall. Cyfi painted with Joel Valdez (his Instagram is @joel2valdez; you can probably see it without an account if you don't click on any photos). Here are photos from May 7th on Instagram @cyfione (to see more, click the arrow in the circle at the right edge):

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by CYFI (@cyfione)

The Arizona Daily Star has more: Photos: The Tucson Music Hall renamed for Grammy and Emmy Award-winner Linda Ronstadt

If you're a Star subscriber, you can read this story of Cyfi and the mural and see even more photos: Tucson muralist found inspiration from Linda Ronstadt's story

I'm hoping to get a chance to take a photo myself. If I do, I'll update this.

Sacred

Mural by Alejandra Trujillo.  Found at 'The Historic Y', 300 E. University Blvd.  The mural is on the east wall facing N. Herbert Ave.

Click on the photo for a larger image.

Ruthette Kennedy sent another photo of the mural as well as this closeup of the artist's signature and website:

Thank you, Ruthette!

Las Dos CoMadres

Las Dos CoMadres is a thrift shop:

Wagon Burner Arts painted the sign and address. WBA's logo is at the bottom of the sign:

I stopped by on April 3, 2021.

Panaderia at a tortilleria

On September 20, 2019, we showed a mural by Jilmar Alaniz on Tortilleria Don Juan (where you can buy tortillas). The same building also has Panaderia La Providencia (where you can buy bread). There's also a small restaurant inside. When I stopped by on April 3rd, 2021, I found that the panaderia had its own mural, next to the front door, just to the left (south) of the Tortilleria Don Juan mural. It was partly covered over:

A closer look shows that they're riding a bicycle together:

(I joined the shadow and bright areas with my favorite free photo editor, GIMP.)

I'll keep an eye out for the mural to be repaired or replaced.

Skyline of the Imagination.

On April 21, 2022 I happened to be on Jerrie Ave. (for no particular reason) and found this mural:

  Click on the photo for a larger image.

Mural gallery repainted during BBQ

Update: I took these photos on April 3rd. Since then, the walls were repainted April 24th!

Thanks to Monty Ses Esposito (he goes by “Ses”) for inviting me to meet a lot of Tucson muralists, some of whose work I'd seen for years but hadn't met in person. It was a Grill & Chill BBQ with maybe 20 artists repainting the wall we showed in our November 2, 2021 post Graffiti mural gallery in South Tucson.

Ses told me the story of the place (on the north side of the wall; you can see the south side in that previous post). There used to be a house that burned down. The site became more and more run-down until a group of muralists got together to clean it up and paint. The group when I was there on April 3rd was chill: I felt right at home with a bunch of friendly people, ages from children up to (I'm guessing) 50s and 60s.

I'd never heard of Barrio Restoration until Ses told me that they came to the site after the big cleanup and hauled away the mountain of trash. Here's their Facebook page. A year ago, KOLD-TV News 13 and Casino del Sol named Barrio Restoration one of “Arizona’s Heart and Sol.” After the day's painting finished, Barrio Restoration posted the video below, “To the hood from the hood. Carne Asada vibes with the homies today.” (If you can't see it, here's a link to their Facebook video.)



Like several other muralists I met there, Ses has been painting in Tucson since the 1990s. He said that, back then, when Tucsonans saw people painting urban art, they'd be afraid, as if they were in danger. That's completely changed: Now people stop by, say hi and visit for a while. (He's also painted more-traditional murals, like the Greetings from ARIZONA mural we showed on October 8, 2021.

Artists painting

The mural theme was outer space. I took some photos while the artists were painting, then came back after it was done. First, during painting. As I said, the artists were of all ages:

Next, photos of older :) artists at work:

It looks like the artist in the last photo was painting a galaxy or something else spacey within the letters. I was interested to see the finished mural — actually, all of the murals — when I came back in a few days.

(Note that although everyone was painting legally here, some graffiti artists don't want their faces shown. So I took all photos from behind.)

The finished wall

I came back on April 5th and 6th to take photos of the completed murals. Let's start with a three-photo overview:

The wall is L-shaped; the short side runs from north to south, then turns at the corner with the long side from east to west. When I came back on April 5th, a homeless man had set up camp in the corner of the L. The past weekend, the artists gave him one of their tents, he told me. The tent covered some bits of artwork, but nothing as finished-looking as the rest of the murals. He does the same as the artists: walks the alleys and cleans them up. They come by fairly often to paint; he gets to watch.

Below are photos from the left (north) end to the right (west). First, two murals near the ground with a subway car mural at the top. The top mural was there so each artist can paint their tag on a car — just like a subway car in, say, New York City. (I don't support painting ilegally, but it's true that a lot of muralists got started that way. I talked with a couple of artists here who did. Another is Rock “Cyfi” Martinez… I read his story in the old Tucson Citizen newspaper many years ago.)

The two murals above, under the train, by themselves:

The next three from left (north) to right (south):

Along the long wall, from east (left) to west (right):

The artists keep refreshing this wall — and the other (south) side too. When you're on 6th Avenue, turn west on 36th (there's street parking) and check out the latest.