Ted DeGrazia's inspirations: Orozco and Rivera

A week ago — May 15 — The DeGrazia Gallery in the Sun Museum posted that painting by Tucson artist Ted DeGrazia on their Facebook and Twitter accounts. The Facebook caption was:

Because DeGrazia had interned for both Diego Rivera and Jose Clemente Orozco, many of DeGrazia’s older works were patterned after them. The influence it had on the Tucson artist, in both style and subject matter, is evident.

DeGrazia’s "Skipping Rope", oil on canvas, 1944.

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In case you aren't familiar with those Mexican muralists, here are searches on DuckDuckGo (a private alternative to Google):

• Diego Rivera
• Jose Clemente Orozco

Had a crash? Get a mural!

When I spotted people painting a mural at Dan's Toy Shop on the southeast corner of Ft. Lowell & Tucson, I couldn't stop… so I made a note to come back. I remembered the business name and that the mural was of a vehicle. What did that have to do with toys?

When I went back to take a closer look (above), I found out. Dan's Toy Shop repairs Toyota… and Lexus and Scion. Here's the overview:

In the background was a corner of the west side of Seven Cups Chinese Teas. I'd already taken photos of the new mural on the other (east) side of Seven Cups. Thanks to Jodie Chertudi, who painted that mural, I found out that Dan's mural is temporary: They painted it because someone crashed into the window at the front of their shop. Once the window is back, the mural will be gone. So there it is!

(Next week, I'll have photos of both sides of Seven Cups.)

Update (May 20, 2023): Jodie later pointed me to a Facebook Reel showing herself and Miguel Flores (@t_bones_in_az on Instagram) painting the mural: https://www.facebook.com/reel/949002449571732. The caption over the reel says “A vehicle crashed through the front door of Dan's Toy Shop back in December and we were asked to add some color to the temporarily boarded up plywood. Thank you to @danstoyshop1957 [on Instagram] for letting us experiment and try out some different techniques with this one.”

Long lost dream

This blog started in July, 2006. We have very few murals before that time… and I'm guessing that founder Randy Garsee, a popular TV newscaster, was busy enough he probably didn't have time to post every Tucson mural he'd seen.

(I'd love to put more photos of historic Tucson murals on this blog! If you have photos of murals that the blog might not have or know where to get them, please use the contact form at the right edge of any page… tell me where to find a copy of the photo online or how to reach you to get it.)

When I met artist Curtis Alan Kiwak during the artists’ Open Studios Tour last month, he mentioned that he'd worked on one mural in 1999 or 2000. Here it is — enlarged from a photo of his, so it's a bit fuzzy:

You can see some of his more recent work on his website Artwork page https://www.curtiskiwak.com/artwork and on his Facebook page curtis.kiwak (click there to visit).

His September 28, 2019 post on the Facebook Tucson Murals and Street Art group told some of the story and included the photo above:

Finally found the only photo I have of the one mural project which I ever was part of in either 1999 or 2000. Knew nothing of mural making! I was working at Child and Family Resources when Martha Rothman and Susie Huhn asked me to help create a mural for the Liberty neighborhood. I drew it on the wall with charcoal and magic marker in one day. A crew of volunteers from Lucent Technologies came on the next day. I would mix paint hand out colors pointed to were to paint. [After working] 8 to noon, we had 3/4 of it painted. The next Saturday it was done and became a mural till it got torn down a couple of years ago.

I replied to ask for more details. He sent a Google Maps Street View photo of the empty lot where the building and the mural used to be:



And he wrote:

This is where the building was until they tore it down to make a new building- Child and Family Resources Inc. had grant money to help the Liberty Partnership to do the mural. The Liberty neighborhood had a Community Center down the street, there were Headstart classrooms. But I did do the work in 2000. … I have the original drawing I submitted in my studio buried somewhere .

Thanks so much for filling in a piece of Tucson's long history of murals, Curtis!

This Spot (was) Rocked

Our previous post, Ready to Rock (the Spot), gave background about the Rock the Spot parking lot painting weekend in October, 2022. Here are more photos and a video of the lot during and after painting.

Thanks to BG Boyd Photography and his Tucson Murals Database, tucsonazmurals.com, for the photo above of Rock the Spot in progress. He also has a YouTube video of the parking lot before and after:



A link to BG's video is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r12dIn6iCgI.

The photos below show most of the murals finished… though a few are still being made and there's equipment scattered around the parking lot. I took these photos early on Monday, October 17, 2022. Unlike most of our posts, I haven't edited these photos very much. (There are too many photos — 34 of them! — and some of the angles I took them from make editing tough to do.)

If you have trouble reading some graffiti letters, Graffiti Empire's Graffiti Letters A-Z tutorial could help. It shows 26 styles of lettering and explains how to write (draw) the letters. You can also search online for something like: graffiti lettering.

The photos start from Danny Martin's mural at the southwest corner, which had already been in that place for a while. I move generally clockwise. In the middle, I detour down a narrow passage that connects with Scott Avenue and two existing murals there (Tawt you taw a puddy tat? and citrus & quail). I wind up at the southeast corner — where a new mural, Three Sisters / Las Tres Hermanas, has been finished in the past couple of weeks (so it isn't in these photos from last year).

Some of the photos are wide views that cover several murals. Those are followed by individual photos of all (or most) of the murals in the wide view. Sometimes there are close-ups of a particular mural.

Here goes!

Another Rock the Spot is coming later in 2023! The date should be announced in September.

Ready to Rock (the Spot)

October 14-16, 2022, talented artists from around the US got together to fill the blank walls in this parking lot with murals:

That's from the current front page of RockTheSpotAZ.com. “The Spot” is the Pueblo Parking Systems lot between Congress and Pennington, just east of Stone.

Our previous blog post — Tucson graffiti art, 1994 — tells some of the story behind Rock the Spot. For instance, Albert Soto of TPAC (a predecessor of today's Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern AZ) arranged a trip to Italy; there are details in the Albert Soto tribute page on the Rock the Spot website). The trip connected Tucson artists with others from around the world.

For a long time, Monty “Ses” Esposito had the idea of muralists painting an area — which later happened in the parking lot now known for Rock the Spot. Ses talked with many people, but the idea never resonated with anyone until he talked with Demo (Joshua Behshad).

Nothing came of Ses’ idea until he helped paint a wall on Grant west of Campbell… see our October, 2021 blog entry Día de Los Muertos on Grant Road. That mural got news attention. A woman approached Ses to say that they had space to paint downtown and showed him the parking lot. Time passed. Ses remembered the parking lot owners (Pueblo Parking Systems); they loved the idea of Rock the Spot. Another important player was Demo, a guy who gets things done, Ses told me. Demo was a big part of Rock the Spot.

A mostly empty lot

On to 2022. Until the painting, there were two murals at opposite ends of the Pueblo Parking Systems lot: Danny Martin's mural at the far right — and, behind the camera, at the northeast end of the parking lot, a mural by Rachel, Tim and Alexandra. Here's a video “tour” of the parking lot before it was painted:

Links to the video above: Sequence 01 (Rock The Spot parking lot) from Joshua Behshad on Vimeo.

Before the lot was painted, the Google Maps Street view shows it mostly empty. These two angles show it first from the south side along Congress, then from the north side along Pennington:





On this blog October 10th, we announced the upcoming event. The post has a promotional ”poster” and overall info: Rock the Spot: Graffiti art festival October 14-16

Parking lot primed

Before artists started working, the walls were painted with dividing lines to show where each artist — or group of artists — could paint:

Thanks to Ses for those four photos.

Another Rock the Spot is planned for this year (2023). The date should be announced in September.

Our next blog post will show photos of the finished murals. Here, I'd like to acknowledge the artists who came to paint in 2022.

The artists

I don't have a complete list of artists. Below are the signatures I could spot when I took photos just as most of the painting had been finished, October 17, 2022. I mostly walked clockwise around the parking lot, starting at the next mural north of Danny Martin's PARKING mural — but not every signature is in order. A lot of the signatures are Instagram account handles (starting with @, like @tucson.art):

(@jeks_nc painted the mural with three views of Linda Ronstadt. If you haven't seen it already, it's in our next post. His Instagram page — click there — shows lots of similar murals.)

Next: The (almost) finished murals

In the next post, you'll see the murals almost done — most of them finished, and leftover equipment etc. around the parking lot.

Update (May 12, 2023): The 30+ finished murals (and a few not finished) are in today's post This Spot (was) Rocked.