Filed under: Art, Phoenix | Tags: Art, Downtown Phoenix, El Mac, Freshly Pressed, Lalo Cota, Murals, Phoenix
So, I was back at the huge mural project, Calle 16, the other day. I have written about it several times (1, 2, 3). Lots of new stuff there now. Calle 16 is not technically in the area referred to as “Downtown Phoenix,” where the majority of the other murals I have photographed are located. However, it’s only a couple miles away and many of the same muralists are active in both areas.
This is the building right next to the one below; you can see it on the left side of the above photo.
You can see that the building next to this now has the mural below as well as one on the side of the building.
This is actually the back of a new gallery called Por Vida, owned by muralists/artists Lalo Cota, Pablo Luna, and Thomas Breeze Marcus. I most recently wrote about Lalo here and I have mentioned all of them in the past. This is Angel Diaz’s work below.
You can see Lalo’s unmistakable style here.
Around the corner of the building, once again, Lalo is evident but this wall was also painted by El Mac, Kaper, and Fyce. El Mac is from Phoenix but has now become an international muralist/artist and I’ve written about him many times, too, including here.
This is the part done by El Mac last December when he was visiting Phoenix. He is now based in L.A., but travels all over the world doing commissioned art.
And here is the front of the building where the entrance to Por Vida is.
Just about a block south of this area, also on 16th Street (Calle 16), another large mural was just recently painted and I’ll show you some photos of it in a few days. Plus, there have been several new murals done in downtown Phoenix in just the last couple of weeks so I will probably get some shots of those this coming weekend.
Update: This post was Freshly Pressed on 3.28.12. Thank you, WordPress! This was my second FP. The first one is here.
You belong among the wildflowers,
You belong somewhere close to me.
Far away from your trouble and worry,
You belong somewhere you feel free.
~Tom Petty, Wildflowers
A postcard from Arizona…
Come to beautiful Arizona this time of year, when the African Daisies (as well as Arizona Poppies) are growing wild. Some people have their yards filled with them, some of the median strips in the streets are full of them…the scent of citrus and other flowers is in the air and, at night, you can still smell mesquite burning in fireplaces…as you drive down the streets of the 6th largest city in the US…you pretty much either love it or hate it here (I’m in the former category).
To see a world in a grain of sand
And a Heaven in a wild flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
~William Blake, Auguries of Innocence
These are some shots from the same street fair where I took the photos of the vintage trailers.
Did you know hood ornaments are called car mascots in the UK? This is a Boyce MotoMeter above. From Wikipedia, “In the early years, automobiles had their radiator caps outside of the hood and on top of the grille which also served as an indicator of the temperature of the engine’s coolant fluid. The Boyce Motormeter Company was issued a patent in 1912 for a radiator cap that incorporated a thermometer that was visible to the driver with a sensor that measured the heat of the water vapor, rather than the water itself.”
Best reflection of the series (above).
Here’s the one that doesn’t quite fit with the group.
This is a 1937 Terraplane. Tony’s band is called Terraplane Station so I took a bunch of photos of this Terraplane. Maybe that will be a post for another day…
Listen, everyone has a chance. Is it spring, is it morning? ~ Mary Oliver
Ranunculus…
Cosmos…(Kim Klassen’s Music Lovin’ Texture)
Hibiscus…(Kim Klassen’s Shine Texture)
Daisies (?)…and plenty more…
While walking around the Casa (shown in my last post) a few days ago, one of the many gorgeous things I saw was this terracotta pot filled with cacti. I thought it was so pretty and~since I am always looking for plants that can survive the brutal Arizona summers~I thought this would be the perfect solution for our front porch when almost everything else is withering.
I went home and googled pots until I found one like this and learned it’s a strawberry jar. Since I had to have one I looked online and ordered a smaller version, one with only 4 “pockets.” It was delivered to my house Friday while I was at work so, on the way home, I stopped at my favorite nursery and stocked up on some cacti for my own strawberry jar:
Enough for every pocket and the top opening. So I took my little cacti home and opened my strawberry jar. Oh-oh.
Mine has teeny-tiny pocket openings, not wide ones like the one at the Casa. They’re too narrow for the already small cacti I bought. So now I have 4 cacti, one succulent, and a strawberry jar. I need another container to make a cactus garden and I need something to put in my strawberry jar. Strawberries? Ivy and coleus? Herbs? I looked online and saw photos of all those different plants in strawberry jars but I’m not sure how well they would fare in the stifling Phoenix summer. Any ideas?
*The funny white cactus sticking out of the strawberry jar is called a Peruvian Old Man (espostoa lanata). I looked that up when I got home, too.
