Friday, December 29, 2017

A kind Tucson tradition

I'd like to close 2017 with photos of special Tucson murals, “bells” awarded to especially kind Tucsonans — and more. You've probably heard of Ben's Bells. In case you haven't,or you'd like to know, the Ben's Bells home page tells their story. Or you can go straight to photos of their murals pages.

(The photo is from our April 28, 2014 entry Ben's Bells at Starr Center.)

A kind 2018 from The Tucson Murals Project!

Friday, December 22, 2017

More holiday food?!

If you haven't had enough holiday fare, how about donuts? :-P I just searched online with Bing for Amy's Donuts Tucson and found lots of rave reviews for a donut shop open 24/7, packed with people at 10 pm. 'Nuf said? (I'm not sure if they'll be open on Christmas, so you might want to stock up ahead of time…)

They also have a scrumptious mural on the east side of their (extremely-brightly decorated) building: donuts floating over Tucson. Let's chow down on the whole mural and two closeups:

Yum!

Friday, December 15, 2017

Look out!

Back on May 15th, we showed a photo of a mural titled "Look out for each other". Since then, Kikie Wilkins has sent in a photo of another mural included on the right-hand (west) side of Rock Martinez’ mural:

I'm pretty sure the BMX rider, in front of the big letters PERAZA, is Kevin Peraza of Tucson. (I found that info online on the G-Form website.) He's doing some (to me, at least) pretty amazing riding — which led to my takeoff of Rock's mural title.

I stopped by on November 6th to get closer photos:

Friday, December 08, 2017

Mosaics on Oracle

I found both of these mosaics in the median on N. Oracle Rd. between W. Adams St. and W. Lee St.
The artist(s) will have to remain anonymous.

Click on either photo for larger and sharper images of both.

Friday, December 01, 2017

Kip's; no, Vip's; no, ??'s Big Boy on Steinfeld warehouse

When I saw Mark Fleming's emailed photo from May 27th, I recognized the iconic Vip's Big Boy restaurant statue with a hamburger on his upstretched arm. (Do you remember that?) Then I noticed Mark had named it Kip's. That led me to a Wikipedia article about a (formerly) big restaurant chain — well, multiple chains — in the section of a long article named Roster of named franchisees. (There's a lot more, like the way to make different burgers and how the statue evolved, which you can see by scrolling that page up.) But I digress… :)

The mural is pasted onto the wall. There were lots more (earlier) paste-ups at the end of our October 30, 2014 entry Steinfeld Warehouse revisited (and re-energized).

Friday, November 24, 2017

Much better photos of Joe Pagac's underwater mural

Around the month we posted A few bold underwater human and alien fish (?) in mid-2016, a lot was changing on the mural hotspot of 191 East Toole Avenue. (If you haven't been there, it's worth a trip: There are murals on all but one side — and along Toole bordering the parking lot. Cross the tracks along 6th Avenue to see the building's north side.)

That blog entry has a couple of photos of a then-new mural by Joe Pagac:

That's an edited versions of one of Mark Fleming’s May 27, 2017 photos. There are more below.

The humans are holding clown fish, and their hair looks like sea anemone. It's a typically clever Joe Pagac mural. See the ramp at the left bottom, with some stuff along it? The buckets and cans could be for Joe's paint, and the ramp might be for him to reach part of the mural — though I think he finished the mural more than a year before Mark snapped these photos.

Now, as we take a look at detailed photos, take a look at a clever part:

What's at the end of the ramp? I don't mean the security lamps. If you don't see it yet, look just under the fish's mouth: That's a door handle, attached to the door:

The only reason I noticed it, as I shot my photos from far away, was that the door opened as someone was waiting to go inside. (I may have lost that photo, but I'll watch for it.)

Let's wrap this up with more closeups from left to right:

When David Aber spotted this blog entry, he wrote a couple of notes and sent links to two news articles:
1. The mural is titled "Harboring Beauty" and 2. Joe paid homeless men and women to pose for the mural.

Both stories below include photos and stories of other Pagac murals:

Local muralist paints Tucson brighter

The Man Behind the Mural: Joe Pagac
Thanks for those tips, David!

More of Mark's great photos next time.



Update (December 9, 2017): I found my photos of the opened door at the end of the ramp (circled in red above). Here's the best of them. I didn't catch the person walking in, but you can see that the door is open.

I took the photo on June 13, 2017.
Update (November 19, 2018): Today's Cactus Catz blog entry has more photos and info: Mural : Joe Pagac’s Harboring Beauty.

Friday, November 17, 2017

Parking lot morphs into cracked earth


This mural, on the south side of a parking lot next to the fading mural on the former Access Tucson building, was painted sometime earlier this year. It doesn't seem to be signed. I like the way that the paved parking lot (at the bottom of the photo above) becomes cracked earth. (You can click on the photo for a larger view.) Kikie Wilkins (click there to visit his website) sent the photo above on November 5th. He wrote:
[This photo,] at the Wavelab Studios, I don’t know what the actual title of this mural is, nor do I know who painted it. I figured it looked like Salvador Duran, so that’s what I went with. A friend of mine, Jake Sullivan (who owns Wooden Tooth Records on 4th, and who has played with Salvador) told me it was kind of funny and it would be a Sal thing to do to paint a mural of himself. I don’t know how much of a tongue-in-cheek thing this would be; I’ve only met Salvador a couple of times. I would think one of the guys at that Wavelab Studio building would know a lot more.
I'll try to catch up with someone at Wavelab Studios. If you know any part of the story, please leave a comment below. (You can remain anonymous.)

The mural is so wide that it's hard to photograph all at once. Here are a couple of close-ups from Mark Fleming. The first looks to me like the left end of the mural:

Mark Fleming took these photos on May 27th or so. He suggests that maybe the mural was commissioned by the people in the building behind who share a wall with the mural, Wavelab Recording Studios.

This is the first of three sets of Mark's photos. You can see the others in the next two blog entries.

Update (July 30, 2019): Cactus Catz posted a comment saying that the artist is Diego Roa. Today's blog entry includes a photo of the man in this mural, Salvador Duran. Here he is — in front of his mural in the Lost Barrio: