Thursday, April 28, 2016

Downtown Mural Project design open house

Tuesday night the 26th, (most of) the artists who'll be painting murals downtown next month showed their work to a crowd at the Joel D. Valdez Main Library…

Some of the works were finished designs; others were still being developed. Here's a video of the artists introducing their work:



(You can also see the video by clicking on its address, here: https://youtu.be/kLSYTiEuZng.)

I snapped some quick photos of some of the designs before the presentation started. Unfortunately, I didn't get them all... but you can see more in the video above... and all in the TAB page mentioned at the bottom of this article.


Jose Ignacio Garcia, Rialto Theatre


Rock Martinez, 440 N. 7th Ave.


Pete Goldlust, 213 E. Broadway


Issac Caruso, at 9 North Scott Ave.


Jessica Gonzales, along Scott between Congress & Broadway, on Wig-O-Rama


Niki Glen, at the west corner of 5th Ave. & Toole.


Luis Gustavo Mena on CenturyLink, 142 E. Pennington St.

The Arizona Daily Star article Design selections of city mural project to be shown publicly has an artist list (though, on Tuesday evening, the online version had formatting errors and maybe a missing name).

Graffiti Protective Coatings is preparing the artists’ “canvases” with a coat of primer paint. The artists start work May 2nd. Stop by! Bring them cold drinks! (Some will be working at night to avoid the heat.)

There are more details and photos of all the mural designs on the Tucson Arts Brigade Mural Arts Program blog in the article City of Tucson Mural Program Announce winning designs for Downtown Murals Open House Tues. April 26. The next meeting, where artists will discuss their progress, is at the Joel Valdez Main Library, in the downstairs meeting room, May 24th from 6-7 pm.

Update (April 28, 2016): Tucson News Now posted a short update after the meeting in Tucson artists to revamp downtown buildings with mural project. (The “For more information” link link at the bottom of the story seems to be outdated, though.)

Update (June 4, 2016): The space for the mural at 213 E. Broadway stayed empty most of May. When I walked by today, I saw the outlines of a different design than the one shown above. I checked and found that a different artist, To-Ree-Nee Wolf Keiser, is filling the space.

Monday, April 25, 2016

Edge High School, part 8 of ??

I guessed wrong in the previous post in this series that there would be only two more posts. I just found more photos of the long wall, so it seems that there'll be a few more posts! Let's start with the panel after the last one we saw a week and a half ago:

More next time from my November 6th art overload.

Thursday, April 21, 2016

No surprise behind this building

It won't take long to figure out what kind of business operates in the lot behind this building:

I spotted it on November 20, 2015.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Edge High School, part 7 of ??

A week ago, in Edge High School, part 6 of ??, we were getting near the light at the end of the (bright!) tunnel — the long wall of murals, that is, along the alley at the north edge of the Edge High School campus on Speedway just south of the eegee's location.

Here are the next three murals, left to right:

A couple more posts from my November 6th visit should wrap this up!

Monday, April 11, 2016

Park Place Chalk Art Festival 2016

April 9 and 10 was the annual festival, organized by SAACA. As before, artists drew on the north-side sidewalks. Let's start with the Kids' Zone near Macy's:

Next, artist by artist:


I didn't catch this artist's name. If you know, please leave a comment below!


Or this artist either...


Gina Ribaudo


Carolyn Watson-Dubisch


Wesley Creigh


Martín Quintanilla


Jose Ignacio Garcia


Matt Cotten


Marisa Salazar

I'll be looking forward to next year!

Thursday, April 07, 2016

Edge High School, part 6 of ??

A week ago, we showed the fifth in a long series of photos from the north side of Edge High School, just south of Speedway. It showed a long series of murals. Now let's look at those murals, close-up, a few at a time — beginning at the left (west) end of that long wall:

Looks like I'll be able to fit the other murals into three more blog entries. Until next time…

Monday, April 04, 2016

Top of Tech Park

Along Kino Parkway, just south of 36th Street, are tile murals on curving walls along the edge of the (soon-to-be) UA Tech Park at The Bridges. Walking into them from the north:

Here are the sides of each wall (click for a larger view):

The credit panels are on the ends of the walls. They probably correspond to the artists who made the tiles on each wall. Unfortunately, I didn't keep track of which was where…

Nearby is a bench where you can take a break. (Click there to view it on the Tucson's Pocket Parks blog.)

My first visit here was just before August 1, 2012, when three of the murals were done. I came back on March 9, 2016.