Arizona – Mesa (Nov 11, 2018) Murals

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First, on November 10 (Marine Corps Birthday),  we went to the Charles Schwab Cup Championship. Walking the golf course and see many of the golfers was nice.

Mike and Lorraine outside of the Veterans Tent where we were treated to drinks, food and shade on the 13th Green. We had got $1 tickets to attend since Mike is a Marine veteran.
VIjay Singh practicing. On Sunday, he won the championship by shooting 10 under par. Way to go Vijay.

 

On November 11, we had another beautiful day in Arizona and this time went to Mesa, AZ to see the Murals and the Sculptures throughout the downtown area. We were laughing that when we are in a new city, we either visit the State Capitol, look for murals and/or sculptures. We find that a lot of towns offer something to see and instead of doing the usual tourist things we like to look at the city in this way to see the culture and see what they are doing to improve the areas or to add splash.

We are still amazed that most artists paint are commissioned to paint. There are even competitions by submission to win the right to paint a wall. This is a great way to support the Artist community. We now look at blank walls and think about whether a new mural could go there.

Many pictures so pull up a cup of coffee/tea/drink and enjoy. This post will show the murals. We will send out another post for the sculptures.

You know the city loves their murals and sculptures when they have a walking map to show them off. This is known as the Art Walk Guide which can be reviewed by this link.

Mesa Art Walk Map

Here are some of the murals we took pictures of.

One of two Mesa Murals. This mural was completed in August 2015, commissioned by the City of Mesa and Downtown Mesa Association. Location: McDonald and Main St, Mesa, Az. This was created by Lauren Lee who work you can see at http://www.laurenleefineart.com/#/mesa-mural/.
One of two Mesa Murals. Do you see how detailed and beautiful the mountains are on the left?
Wanted to start with one of our favorites. This was the before of the next mural. You can immediately tell the difference after the mural and understand why they use murals to upgrade the areas.
The corner after the mural is completed by Artist Mural Mice – Artists R.E. Wall and Margaret Dewar are best known as the Mural Mice, a collective of Arizona public artists originating from Prescott in 2005.. Cannot imagine how this was painted in the middle of the summer – maybe that is why it is melting. You can check out their website at https://muralmice.com/mural-gallery/21-melting-point-mural-2012.
The side view of The Melting Point Mural
Center wall of the Republica Empanada Murals

Right Corner of the Republica Empanada Murals
The right corner of the murals.
This is the corner of the left front mural. (You can see the cactus on the front wall to give you some orientation.) Lorraine really liked this one.
Beautiful bird mural on MacDonald St. Taking up alcoves of a side of a building.
Another mural taking up another alcove on MacDonald Street.
Another mural taking up another alcove on MacDonald Street. Love the reflection in the cactus and red Phoenix sky.
The last mural taking up another alcove on MacDonald Street. We had to laugh at this one. The girl just does not look happy.
This is inside Mesa Gardens. They painted all the walls around the community garden. It was awesome to see how much pride they took with this area to actually paint the walls to brighten it all up.
Another wall mural inside of Mesa Gardens.
Part of a mural found in the alley on MacDonald St. and First Avenue.
This is the far left corner of the one above. This one is called Prime Cut & Sew Mural, which is the back door of the Prime Cut & Sew Barbershop and Boutique. They sell sneakers and clip your hair.

Lost Neon Signs murals located on Robinson Street. There are four of them. Murals that depict neon signs on businesses that previously operated in the city have been painted on the west wall of Surf and Ski building at 137 W. Main St.  Mesa is well known for its historic and vintage neon signs, officials with the Downtown Mesa Association said. So, they decided to figure out how to pay tribute to those signs. The result? The wall of murals.Four artists were selected to create the murals, from a field of about 50 applicants, Downtown Mesa Marketing and Communications Manager Cori Garcia said.

Anthony Galto re-created three vintage signs in one mural panel. He selected Stapley’s Hardware and Appliances, Mama G’s — a restaurant owned by his grandmother — and Wright and Sons, a grocery store.

 

Another neon sign done by artist Jesse Perry. Perry, of Phoenix, works full time as an artist. He has public art on display in Scottsdale and Phoenix, in addition to the Mesa mural.
The Third Mural by Mark Matlock who selected the Rancho Drive Inn sign for his mural. The motel sign featured a woman decked out in a cowboy hat. He saw only black and white photos of the sign, so he had to choose colors for the mural. His desire was to make the mural look like an old post card and look like neon. He used a wash to rub over the final work, a technique used by Renaissance artists. Matlock said he spent between four and five hours for three or four days completing his 9-by-14-foot mural.
David “Dski One” Oswoski of Mesa weaves his childhood influences of skateboarding, graffiti art and hip hop music into his art.
Cinderella. We took this picture to show the results of a mural not being kept up. We have read that most murals last one to two years and are probably painted over or refreshed. Couples apparently get engaged and married in front of this mural. I have included a picture from the web to show this. Unfortunately, no pictures of the mural when it was first painted have been found.

Floral Mural by Artist Dski One between Robison and MacDonald. Another mural down an alley. Remember that these murals are commissioned and we could not figure out why this one would of been painted all the way down an alley but it sure had great colors.
The D.E.S. mural by Artist Hugo Medina on the side of the Department of Economics Services (DES) Building and the hands are extending out of the mural. See the next picture. And notice that Mike captures a bird flying over.
This is a side view of the D.E.S. mural where you can see that the hands are outside of the mural. Pretty cool.
Surf & Ski Mural on the backside of their shop. Artist is unknown. It has faded as before the shirt was bright red. This was across from the parking lot we parked our car in so it was the first one we saw.

 

Now on to our sculpture page. Hope you enjoyed these murals.

 

 

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