Desert Pen's mural is alive

That mural by The Desert Pen (Pen Macias) is on the west side of the TUSD (Tucson Unified School District) building along 5th Avenue, facing a small parking lot. It's next to another mural, which used to cover the entire wall before Pen painted hers:

The mural on the right is The Living Mural. Next time, there'll be photos of it, as well as earlier versions.

Across the parking lot are murals for Black Crow Tattoo, a business of Jason Le Nolan's — who also coordinates the living mural.

I took these on September 20, 2022.

Along the alley

Next to the mural we posted a week ago, Running along 3rd Avenue, an alley runs to the west (halfway between 27th and 28th Streets). That alley has a series of murals along the north wall of Flintstone Tire & Auto. Here's the view from the east end, at 3rd Avenue, on November 27, 2022:

Next, closeups from the left (east) end to the right (west):

Barely a mural

This is the entrance to Firestone Flintstone Tire & Auto Care in Bedrock South Tucson:

Last time, in the post Running along 3rd Avenue, we saw a mural on the east wall of this business. What caught my eye here were the painted numbers on both sides of the gate. They're in some of the same colors used in the mural, so I wonder if the muralist painted these too?

If you aren't familiar with the Flintstones’ family car, look at the fandom.com Flintmobile page. The first paragraph says:

The Flintmobile (also known as the Cavemobile) is a Canopysaurus and an iconic vehicle owned by Fred Flintstone, featured in the original series and franchise, The Flintstones by Hanna-Barbera.

I was there on November 27, 2022… and you'll be glad to know that I won't try any Flintstone jokes.

Running along 3rd Avenue

On the 3rd Avenue side of 331 E. 28th Street is this bright mural painted on a cinderblock wall:

A closeup of the woman on the right:

It's signed “arts found” at the lower right. I tried searching the public art map from the Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona, but it wasn't there. I, um, found this art on November 27, 2022.

(Sorry, I don't have any heart-shaped murals for Valentine’s Day. Have a nice one, anyway!)

Do these fit?

There are a lot of murals in the area around the corner of 3rd Avenue and 26th Street — just into the City of South Tucson. This mural has a big saguaro and some multicolored flowers that I'm not sure you'd normally see next to an old saguaro. Whatever!

I was there on November 27, 2022, taking plenty of mural photos. There are more in the posts before and after this one.

Casa Maria

On the west side (along 3rd Avenue) is this mural on Casa Maria (their listed address is around the corner, 401 East 26th):

I took the photos on November 27, 2022.

Faces have company

Almost six years ago — April 19, 2017 — we posted a photo of a mural by Marcus Robiason on what later became Tanline Printing. The name of the post, Faces, describes this mural and two others by Marcus. (There's a link to more info at the bottom of that post.)

On November 27, 2022, I drove by on 4th Avenue and spotted a new mural next to the first one:

Here's the new mural:

And a closeup near the right end, with “UPward BOUND 2023” on a prickly pear cactus and a tortoise munching a prickly pear pad:

Our Voice, Our Land

Along the alley between 24th & 25th Streets, just west of 4th Avenue (and a block north of the boundary of South Tucson!) is this long mural:

The address Google Maps shows is 1430 S. 4th Avenue, but that's actually a building along the alley. The mural is on the opposite side. (The GPS coordinates are 32.204220, -110.965675… but just walk along 4th Avenue and turn west into the alley.)

I took the photo on November 27, 2022.

(Painting the) Block Party

First, here's the block from the sky (thanks, BG Boyd Photography!):

It was the morning of October 22, 2022. Living Streets Alliance and Tucson's Department of Transportation and Mobility hosted the 6th Avenue Block Painting Party, or the Fiesta en la Calle Para Pintar la Sexta Avenida (there were signs for both).

Start of the day

The day started early with lots of volunteers and staff setting up. Artist Yu Yu Shiratori painted outlines on the street for people to paint. I stopped by at 8:45 AM. That turned out to be too early to see many people painting, but it let me get some photos. (I'm really short on time today, so I'm not editing the photos to look their best.)

I headed home a while after 9 AM. (I just missed crossing paths with drone videographer/photographer BG Boyd, who I've never met but have collaborated with a lot online… you've seen his work on this blog plenty of times.)

Mid-day

I wondered when the painting would be nearly finished, and I guessed 11:45 AM. The party wasn't over, but it was wrapping up.

Street murals tend to fade pretty quickly, so see these when you can! (I hope the planters will live for a long time…)

Black Crow Tattoo

On the side of Black Crow Tattoo next to its parking lot are four murals. From left to right:

I took these photos on taken September 20, 2022, so the murals could have changed by now. (I'm out of town and can't check.) But these murals hadn't changed in the two years since I first came to the parking lot.

The murals on the opposite side of the parking lot are changing. (In May, 2021, they used to be the first Living Mural.) I'm aiming to post an update on that wall in March or April.

All around a mural maze

The building at 191-197 East Toole Avenue downtown is weirdly-shaped…



… with five sides at odd angles, wedged between the north-south 6th Avenue and the northwest-southeast Toole Avenue. The murals are usually as eclectic as the building.

BG Boyd Photography sent this aerial photo from the opposite side taken October 22, 2022 (thanks, as always!):

This blog's page Layers of murals: histories of a few walls lists the zillions of blog posts over the past ten-plus years where we've been showing photos of this beast. If you haven't seen many of the photos, I think you'd have fun browsing those posts. (After you click on a post, use your browser's "back" or left-arrow button to go back to where you started.)

Two months ago — November 18, 2022 — I took a walk around the building to show you the latest version of all the walls. (I skipped a couple of murals next to the parking lot on the northwest side because cars covered parts of the murals… I'll include links to earlier photos of those. Also on the northwest side, the longstanding Rialto Theatre marquee mural was about to be repainted by Jessica Gonzales… I'll show before-and-after photos of that.)

I put captions above a mural or group of murals so you can see the info as you scroll down. Here goes!

On the left end of the southwest-facing wall (along Toole) is a place that might be best-known as Skrappys (no apostrophe), a gathering place with concerts and etc. Now there's just “191 Toole”:

I'm not sure if the rainbow-painted garage is technically part of 191. The inside of this forner warehouse is a maze, and I don't remember what's where.

Next to the right is Studio ONE A Space for Art and Activism; click there for their Facebook page. It's been in this building for years. I believe they've painted at least some of the murals on the east wall of this building, which we'll see at the end of this tour:

At the right end of the southwest-facing wall is BLX. It's been in (at least) two other locations over the years, and it's always had murals. My favorite was their location at Toole and 7th Avenues, where they had a ramp on the wall of their store so skateboarders could skate by a mural — which changed every few months. The September 19, 2016 post More posts, more Mark (more BLX!) has lots of the story and links that will take you to other murals. Here's the scene two months ago:

The southernmost corner isn't actually a corner. It's a tall and narrow flat area. Of course, it has a mural:

The east-facing wall (along 6th Avenue) has always been the place with a series of big murals. Here's a photo of the corner and the wall past it:

Even the low safety wall in front of the building wall is painted!

You have to stand on the other side of 6th Avenue to see the whole thing. First, a photo of the whole wall; then closeups from left to right:

According to an Instagram post from @luxx.arte on August 10, 2021, the mural at the right side of the next-to-last photo above — the one with the Arizona Wildcat — was painted by Luxxarte member @lucksalway_aho from True Descendants.

The middle mural has a lot of detail. Here's a photo of just this mural (note the door; it opens into an interior hallway):

As you can see in the Google Maps satellite view at the start of this post, the northeast side of the building is behind railroad tracks. During November, it was harder to get close to the tracks — and take photos through the fence by the tracks — because construction for the Downtown Links road project made me walk around from 6th Street, then through a gate that was (luckily) open. Here's the view, then closeups from left to right:

I walked back to 6th Street and along 6th Avenue and Toole to reach the fourth wall, the northwest side, with a parking lot along it. The blog already has photos of two of the murals. On June 12, 2016, we showed the wall in transition, including a photo of Joe Pagac's mural at the left end: A few bold underwater humans and alien fish (?). The white space in that post's first photo was replaced by a Danny Martin mural of Ted DeGrazia and a marquee that advertised upcoming shows at the Rialto Theatre: Rialto-style marquee on Toole goes all “Black Lives Matter”. Probably the most famous was Jackie Daytona mural in Tucson, Arizonia. In mid-December, 2022, Jessica Gonzales (and her new husband, I think) replaced everything to the right of Ted DeGrazia with a colorful new marquee mural, shown in this photo (thanks!) by BG Boyd Photography:

Jessica posted a photo of the mural complete with its first Rialto Theatre listing to Instagram on December 16th. (Instagram may require you to log in.)

The mural is surrounded by a background that I'm guessing is a mural sponsorship for The Prime Leaf, a business with two locations listed at the top. Jessica didn't mention this in her Instagram post… if I find out more, I'll update this post. (If you know, please either submit a comment at the end of this post — you can be anonymous — or use the "Contact Us" form along the right edge of this page.)