The Tucson Murals Project

Tuesday, October 31, 2023

Friday, October 27, 2023

This blog hasn't been updated for a few months while I got some much-needed rest; co-editor David Aber took a break too. We're back! You've probably seen David's post three days ago, Apex Predators Take Over.

I've spent two of the months away from Tucson… I'll be home for a month or two before I leave for some more art-hunting out of town. 😎 Although this is the Tucson Murals Project blog, from time to time I like to write a post with murals from another place. Today I'm in Silver City, New Mexico. It's an old mining town, with a very fun downtown full of history, art, and kitsch, surrounded by a big variety of scenery. There's a lot of murals, especially downtown. Just wander the streets — maybe especially the streets north of downtown toward College Avenue (which connects to Western New Mexico University and its Francis McCray Gallery of Contemporary Art).

Here's one of the easiest murals to find—in a place most people probably visit, at the corner of Broadway & Bullard:

(As always, click or tap on any photo for a set of views you can click/tap to enlarge.)

A youth mural project created another detail-filled mural. This one is an old neighborhood scene. The mural is along Bullard at Spring Street:

Some details:

(Above, note the artists' names along the border in ceramic tiles)

I want to visit some art galleries now. So, to save time, I'll only lightly edit the photos below.

The back of The Murray Hotel, in a style sort of like Mondrian:

Next, an underwater mural along 6th Street east of Texas Street. (Yes, the curbs are that high so water can run along them without flooding — the same way that some residential streets in Tucson are designed, mostly without the curbs. Around 100 years ago, so much water ran along the former Main Street that it became a huge ditch… now called the Big Ditch Park!)

A mural showing two sides of a bicycle race. The second and third photos show the route for a challenging mountain race. Don't miss the upside-down bicyclist in the second photo:

Last, another very detailed youth mural along Bullard Street between 6th and 7th:

I'll finish by recommending a route from Tucson to Silver City and back. I can't find a way to share a Google Map from my laptop, so I'll include a screenshot and directions. As before, you can click/tap for a larger view:

I suggest starting by driving to Safford and east from there. This route includes a paved but steep and narrow road. If there's been a thunderstorm in the past few days, the road may be closed at Mule Creek, New Mexico:

Drive I-10 and US 191 to Safford, AZ
Drive US-191/US-70, US-191, AZ-78, NM-78 to Mule Creek, NM (see notes above!)
Drive NM-78, then US-180 to Silver City
Drive NM-90 to Lordsburg, NM, then I-10 to Tucson

If you want even more adventure along the way, I suggest taking this detour through Clifton, AZ (a mostly steep and narrow road):

Don't turn onto AZ-78 (at the intersection called Three Way). Instead:
Stay on US-191 north through Clifton, AZ
Along US-191 around Morenci, AZ, stay right at the fork toward "Mine entrance" and continue up the side of the mountains along narrow US-191. You'll pass miles of mines, then suddenly be in high country with amazing views.
Either turn around or continue north on US-191 to Alpine, AZ, where you can take US-180 south to Silver City. This is a long, remote, slow remote road. Bring water, warm clothes, etc.

Last, if you aren't used to driving on steep, narrow roads:

If you don't know how to down-shift your engine so you aren't constantly pressing your brakes going downhill, read your car owner's manual to learn the maximum safe speeds in each gear — and ask a friend / auto mechanic who understands how transmissions work.
A courtesy tip: Watch your rear-view mirror. If there's someone trying to pass you, make a brief pull-over at the first opportunity. It will cost you a few seconds but can save the other driver lots of time following a slow “flatland” driver.

Tuesday, October 24, 2023

Apex Predators Take Over

A fence prevented me from getting a better photo of this mural.

Artist Unknown

Midsection of Apex Mural

Goofy

Goofy is not part of the Apex mural but it is on the same wall.

Thursday, August 03, 2023

Taking a break...

I forgot to post in June to say that I'm taking a long break from social media until (probably) sometime this fall while I pare down my long list of projects and get some ZZZs. In the meantime, David Aber may post some.

Thanks to negativespace.co for this public-domain photo.

Friday, June 30, 2023

A few of Jessica Gonzales' many Rialto murals

Jessica Gonzales paints bright, sharp and very colorful murals. You've seen her work all over the Tucson area. If you're downtown fairly often, a great place to see her murals is on the east wall of the Rialto Theatre, just off Congress Street as you enter downtown. Here's an aerial example, taken by BG Boyd, from his Tucson murals database tucsonazmurals.com, as Jessica and her husband paint, assisted by Dakin Martin, on November 16, 2022:

Iron Maidens / An Irish Christmas

Below are links to pages in BG's database. The photos were taken from Jessica's Instagram account. Each link will open the mural in a new window or tab. After you close that, this page will still be here.

Friday, June 23, 2023

Morphing MSA murals

We covered some of the first murals at MSA Annex in our September 9, 2020 post BLM murals on MSA Annex (Murals being made, part 55). (BLM = Black Lives Matter.) That was too early to show the following mural by Randy L. Barton and Johanna Martinez:

Above is the fifth in a series of photos from BG Boyd's Tucson Murals database, tucsonazmurals.com. (A direct link to that photo's page is https://tucsonazmurals.com/murals/reimagine_az.)

Seeing BG's photo made me curious what else had changed on that wall since the summer of 2020. I checked my best historical resources, Google Maps Street View and Microsoft Bing Maps Streetside. Here's what I found.

May 2019

May 2019 on Street View, the whole area was under construction:

March 2022

January 27, 2021 on Streetside can't be embedded here. But the March 2022 Street View shows that the murals hadn't changed since the January 27, 2021 Streetside. The mural BJ photographed is at the left end. The wall is lined with half a dozen murals. All of them were shown in our September 2020 post except BG's at the left (which must have been painted between 9/9/2020 and 1/27/2021). Here's the March 2022 Street View. (To zoom in on any Street View photo, click the plus (+) sign.)

February 2023

February 2023 on Street View, the murals at the right end, to the right of the woman kissing a man on his forehead, have been covered with white paint:

Thanks for joining me on this short trip back a few years. I'll try to keep an eye on this fence for more changes. If you notice any, please let me know with the "Contact us" form at the right edge or by leaving a comment at the bottom of the page (you can remain anonymous).

Tuesday, June 20, 2023

A walk around Old Town Artisans

Across the street from the east side of the Tucson Museum of Art is Old Town Artisans, a collection of restaurants and stores around an inside patio between them. In the past year or two, LuxxArte Artists' Collective Members have painted doors and added a different desert plant at the top of each door. There are also murals showing desert scenes. From luxxarte.com, use the menus or go straight to a list of the artists and an overview of the Old Town Artisans Mural Project.

We'll start on the north side, walk along the west side, then around the south side (which is now a pedestrian street, closed to traffic):

Here's an example of what you'll see in the rest of the post — the east end of the north side of the building and its label. There's more information after:

Saguaro (and explanation)

Web page: humanity360.org/ilm-saguaro
Video: youtu.be/CcFPwELbyqU

Almost every mural and door has a label to its right side. (As always, you can click on the lahel photo for a larger view.) I'll include the label after every mural photo. From top to bottom, the labels have:

The name of the plant or the title
The person who speaks in the corresponding video
The artist(s) who painted it
Who made the video

The QR code opens a page on the luxxarte.com website with a YouTube video embedded. So you don't have to point your cell phone camera at the QR code on this blog page, I follow the label photo with two shortened links:

A link to the luxxarte.com page
A link directly to the video

(Clicking on the link opens the web page or video.)

OK? Let's start our walk around the building. The first doorway is to the right of the saguaro mural…

Olive

Web page: humanity360.org/ilm-olives
Video: youtu.be/X_iKSEetZ3Q

Mesquite

Web page: humanity360.org/ilm-mesquite
Video: youtu.be/qROrJq_jM_0

Prickly Pear / Nopal

Web page: humanity360.org/ilm-nopal-pricklypear
Video: youtu.be/Mm5R608neGM

Here's a close-up of the (very fun) window:

Corn / Maize

Web page: humanity360.org/ilm-corn
Video: youtu.be/PR5j9B_zEHE

Chile / Chiletepin

humanity360.org/ilm-chitepines
youtu.be/FWTSsP7mMBY

Cholla

There's no label. Johanna Martinez painted the mural. She told me: “Somehow they never got an interview on the cholla.”

Tepary Beans

Web page: humanity360.org/ilm-teparybeans
Video: youtu.be/Z_J795Qe738

Agave

The south half of the west wall has three murals (Chile / Chiletepin, Cholla, and Tepary Beans), then a mural with one agave. The agave is partly hidden behind utility poles. Let's start with a photo of those, then look at the mural head-on and the agave from the right side:

Web page: humanity360.org/ilm-agave
Video: youtu.be/rKdzL8zwwqI

Black Mission Fig

Web page: humanity360.org/ilm-blackmissionfigs
Video: youtu.be/17twRz4o8sc

Tucson Rose

This door wasn't labeled, but Johanna Martinez painted the mural. She told me that the “mural was just for fun…not part of the Foodways project.” I didn't find a video on www.humanity360.org.