Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Hatch (NM) hijinks

Though this blog is the Tucson Murals Project, from time to time we've shown murals somewhere outside Tucson — such as Randy's 2009 post from Baghdad, Iraq.

During my August visit to New Mexico, I drive through Deming. Then I drove to the village of Hatch. I also took some photos. First, though, a story.

To New Mexicans and other chile lovers), Hatch is famous for its fields of chile — and the endless number of establishments selling chile (in all forms — including delicacies like chile-shaped Christmas lights :) to travelers as well as locals. To other travelers, Hatch is a shortcut between Interstate 10 heading east and I-25 headed north (and vice versa). I passed through Hatch for both reasons: I grew up in New Mexico, so I'm a chile addict... and I was headed that way, so I took the convenient shortcut road between Deming and Hatch to save an hour or so of driving.

But this blog is actually about murals. :) Let's see some!

As I drove eastbound on NM 26 (along the portion that uses Hall Street), I spotted this mural on the front side of what looked a bit like an abandoned building:

Would you like a Google Maps satellite view of Hatch? (it's centered on the corner of Hall and Franklin Streets.)

That mural was just north of the corner where you turn left to continue eastbound (this time, in an easterly direction) on NM 26. I took the turn... and pulled over right away. What a scene!

Hatch has discovered “fun” art: murals, sculpture... it lined both sides of Franklin Street, from this corner east. Then there's the back the northeast corner) of Sparky's:

I'm showing only the corner of Hall and Franklin. If you like this kind of art, you'll Have Fun in Hatch! (And avoid Sparky's at lunchtime, if you can. When I was there, at least — as you can see from the photo above — it was jammed with hungry people.)

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Outer space in a strange place

The building at 191-197 East Toole (at the corner with 6th Avenue, just south of the SPRR tracks) is full of creative people... and some of them like to paint. Some of them like to paint extraterrestrials (a.k.a. “aliens”). The northwest side of the building (on the Skrappys end, facing the parking lot) has always had an E.T. theme — as in the photos from May 25, 2009 and the second photo posted on May 1, 2010.

Then there's the side by the tracks. On May 25, 2010, I posted photos of the side by the tracks (the northeast side) —and just around the corner, on the south end of the east side. Thanks to a heads-up (and some new photos; see below) from super-mural-finder Mark Fleming, I came back to check out the north side on October 3rd. Here are two views from my not-too-happy cell phone camera (which didn't like the sun glaring in its little lens… and the lens was dirty, too):

Here are two of Mark's photos:

Thanks, Mark!

Update (December 31, 2019): The right-hand side looks almost identical six years later, but the mural at the left is ruined. Today's entry has a photo.

Monday, October 28, 2013

Beautiful tile work at Santa Cruz River Park

On north Riverside Drive at west Ontario Street, just south of Speedway and west of I-10 (click there for a satellite view and map from Google) is this heartbreakingly beautiful (sorry... :) mosaic work by Community artists and Santa Theresa Tile Works.

The photo at right is one of the pillars in the central plaza. (You can see a photo of the central plaza on today's post Beautiful murals (and walking) at Santa Cruz River Park in the Tucson's Pocket Parks blog.

Below is detail from that photo.

Head west of the Santa Cruz for some great art — and a stroll, too.

I took the photos in 2007.

Sunday, October 27, 2013

Update on the Swanway Park mural

I'm on my latest trip to New Mexico (which is one reason I haven't been posting to this blog… the other is that I've been really busy). Anyway, I just looked back at the previous entry, More about the Swanway Park mural, and noticed that I hadn't included the photos of the community artists painting the mural.

Click there (or scroll down, if you're on the blog's front page) to have a look!

Tuesday, October 08, 2013

More about the Swanway Park mural

On Saturday, we posted a photo from Allison Miller of a postcard-like mural in Swanway Park that, I wrote, was painted by Allison Miller.

On Monday, Allison happened to be at Bentley's (where she painted a mural based on the movie E.T.… by the way, I took a new and more-evenly-lit photo of the mural. I've just replaced the second photo on that mural page with the shot I took Monday.) She walked over to say hello and mention that the Swanway Park mural was actually a community project. She emailed me two photos:

Thanks much for the updates!

Saturday, October 05, 2013

New @ 1st & Arcadia

This is a photo of the “Greetings from Tucson” mural on 1st St. & Arcadia (located in Swan Way Park on the back wall of Flooring Direct). The mural was done to beautify the park... because the wall was consistently a target for graffiti. Pittsburgh Paint (previously located on Swan) generously donated all the paint, and Lowe’s (Speedway & Kolb) donated paintbrushes. Lead Artist Allison Miller hosted a community paint day in collaboration with Big Brothers Big Sisters of Tucson. The mural was completed in August, 2012 and was inspired by the historic “Greetings from Tucson” postcard.

Allison's latest project is to organize a community mural for the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum. If you’re interested in participating, call her at 520-883-3071.

Thanks so much, Allison!

Update (March 21, 2015): Here's a photo that I took earlier today of (almost) all of the mural with (almost) no tree in front of it: