AZPM's Emmy is for DeGrazia mural story

Congratulations to Arizona Public Media on their Emmy award! It's for their eight-minute story Restoring DeGrazia, which was Arizona Illustrated episode 407. The description says, in part:

A mysterious mural in a Tucson backyard turns out to be the largest Ted DeGrazia mural still in existence. It was originally painted by the artist in 1948 or 1949 and gives us a glimpse into DeGrazia’s mind before his fame and fortune.

Here's the whole video. If you'd like to skip to the mural story without the intro, scroll the player to 1:58…



Update (October 20, 2017): An article about the mural is in the October 2016 issue of Zócalo Magazine.

Cross out L. W. Cross (and something new Oct. 13)

You've heard the stories of Friday the 13th being unlucky, yes? Two days ago, on October 13, David Aber posted photos from a mural on the side of L. W. Cross Middle School. Or so he thought.

(This isn't important to read, but you might have fun with a story of two editors on an 11-year-old blog.)

After the photos went online, he realized that the mural was actually on the school next door: Harelson Elementary, at 826 W. Chapala Drive. On top of that, I'd included photos of the same mural in an blog entry I made four years ago, Mural Heaven at Harelson. He called me today (the 15th) to talk it over.

After ten years on this blog, with many hundreds of entries, it's not easy to keep all of it straight. Still, after ten years, I've gotten pretty good at twiddling things to (mostly) make it all work out.

Just by chance, when Dave called, I was editing new photos of murals I'd posted on the 6th. I'd meant to post the new photos on the 13th, but he posted first. So I'm moving his entry from the 13th to appear today — with this note at the top. (You can see his entry below.) And I've also posted the just-edited photos so they appear as if they went online on the 13th. If I'm lucky, even the links to his post on the 13th should take people to this revised version. I hope.

And I'm sure we'll both be watching six months from now: Friday, April 13, 2018. :-)

---

L. W. Cross Middle School

The L. W. Cross Middle School is in the Amphitheater Public School District and is located near Tohono Chul Park.  The mural is comprised of 231 tiles made by the school's Tile Club.

Photographed on Aug. 2, 2017.
Click on either photo for larger and sharper images.

More of Kristin's gift

A week ago, we published Artistic gift to neighbors and passersby — a series of murals that a Tucsonan named Kristin commissioned along one side of her home. She invited me to stop by and see the murals myself. On October 8th, I did.

Here's the view south from Kennedy Street along Rubio Alley (a.k.a. Rubio Avenue):

I walked along the alley and found more murals. They're facing the alley, so I'm pretty sure they aren't private. From the back (south), looking toward the front side at Kennedy Street:

Don't miss the statuette in the agave patch at the foot of the above mural:

Here's the east side of that shed:

I walked back up the alley and back toward my car, which was parked along Kennedy. On the west side wall of her home was another small mural:

Thanks again, Kristin, for your artistic gift to neighbors and passersby!

Federal law protects murals

Thanks to the Tucson Arts Brigade for tweeting this Honolulu Star-Advertiser news article (via Twitter) about VARA, the Visual Artists Rights Act:

Two disputes over isle murals show potential legal and PR pitfalls

I haven't read any more. But if you're a muralist or know one, you might want to check into this yourself and/or spread the word.

Artistic gift to neighbors and passersby

A block west of the Downtown Clifton Hotel mural, owners of a home have commissioned three murals on the home's side facing the alley. (That's Rubio Alley, which Google Maps calls Rubio Avenue.) Kristin has written us twice: once with the first two photos below, then with the third photo.

Here's what she wrote in the two messages:

We had these murals painted on the side of our house facing Rubio alley in Barrio Viejo.

The image of the virgin was painted by our very good long time friend Raechel Running. She is a photographer, writer, illustrator, and visual artist who hails from Flagstaff and now resides in Barrio Viejo in Tucson just around the corner from us! Her works include covering the greater southwest and the US/Mexico borderlands.

The second mural is a portrait of Artist and poet Jim Harrison that we commissioned just after his death in April 2016. It was created by a great long time friend from Flagstaff, Jaybyrd Willison. Jaybyrd has a colorful history (literally) painting portraits in oil, being an outlaw biker and no gooder-turned-philosophical-hermit and writer.

…

We have added to our collection as well since I emailed you last. I think you will be pleasantly surprised. We continue to commission new work and will hopefully have another in progress soon. I have attached one of the murals with the artist Danny Martin standing next to it.

Google Street View shows more art on the front of their home (facing Kennedy). Fabulous!

Thanks very much, Kristin. I'm looking forward to stopping by and seeing the next mural.

Update (October 15, 2017): There are four more murals to see: More of Kristin's gift.

Magnificent mural in Memphis

When I'm away from my Tucson home, I usually end up finding some spectacular murals. Although this blog is about Tucson, I'm also glad to share a few photos of murals in other places.

As I was driving north along 2nd Street — to see a home-turned-museum in Memphis along the former Underground Railroad — I spotted this mural:

The words are familiar here in Memphis — an important city in the US Civil Rights struggle. But I also liked this mural for the rainbow colors and for the painterly way that the letters are partly covered by dripping paint.

(I wonder if the drips partly covering the words symbolizes some Americans still struggling for their freedom? If you go to Memphis, I'd really recommend the National Civil Rights Museum.)

Mena repaints Roskruge mural (our 1,300th post)

This blog started on July 12, 2006. This is the 1300th entry since then… most are murals,but some are news and announcements. We have plenty more murals waiting to go online… please stay tuned!

Long-time Tucson artist Luis Mena has been here much longer than the blog! He's still painting murals — as well as sculpting and other work, he told me recently. One of his latest projects was restoring his mural on the back wall of the Roskruge Elementary and Bilingual Middle School auditorium stage. It's one of at least two murals he's painted in the school over the years. You can see them by clicking through the list below.

The top mural in the first page below is the auditorium stage mural during October, 2016, as restoration started. See the blank white band running down from the woman's dress? If I remember correctly: Some kind of internet equipment was hung there; it was moved to a side of the stage. There was more to do, too.

Below are the five blog entries showing murals at Roskruge before he started repainting. (Most of the artists were painted by other artists.) You can come back here by clicking your browser's “Back” (or <—) button.

Note that murals are not open to the public without permission. Check in at the office: Come in the north entrance, then turn left at the top of the double stairway inside.

• Roskruge Part 1 of 3 (January 9, 2017)
• Roskruge Part 2 of 3 (January 11, 2017)
• Roskruge Part 3 of 3 (January 13, 2017)
• Scholars on Second Avenue (January 12, 2010)
• What the scholars see (November 3, 2011)

After Mena told me that he'd be repairing the mural, I stopped by on June 21st, 2017. He suggested I stand on a ladder for a better view over the raised auditorium stage. Here's my first photo:

I'm not sure if he'd done much work by this point; the mural looked pretty much the same as in David's photo posted on January 9th.

Mena showed me some of his plans. Here's the stripe that I mentioned:

Next, two closeups of the bottom left. Roskruge's school mascot is a puma, and there's one in the first photo below… though I'd guess it's not always shown with its skeleton inside:

The woman dancing is Mena's daughter. Here he's working from a photograph of her.

Above, on a podium, is the Mayan plaque he'll add to the mural. To the left, he's holding the plaque in the place it'll go.

I came back on August 10th, when (I think) he was basically finished. First, here's the photo David Aber took; then, a photo I took in August:

(If you'd like to compare larger versions of the photos: Click on one of them, then click on the thumbnails at the bottom of the slideshow window that opens.)

You can see that he's fixed the white stripe next to his daughter. The plaque is near the top right corner. There are probably some smaller changes that I didn't notice. (And the two hanging decorations in front of the mural have been taken down sometime since October of last year.)

Miss Muffet's Tuffets II (maybe a mural part 80)

Miss Muffet, better known as Mary Lucking, in collaboration with Dwayne Arnspiger made cast-concrete tuffets that form the bases for eight different ceramic tile mosaics.  They placed them along the Arroyo Chico Greenway in 2013 where I found them on Aug. 10, 2017.  I posted four on Sept. 15.  Here are the rest:

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