painted on the parking structures

Posted on January 7, 2024 by Mary C

Parking garages, especially large structures, can usually be described as boring and ugly, i.e. they aren’t great to look at. Downtown Tampa has a large parking structure that was decorated with street art murals back in 2015.

below: William F. Poe Parking Garage on North Ashley Drive is now home to “Stay Curious” a series of murals by artists Tes One (aka Leon Bedore) and Bask (aka Ales Hostomsky), with contributions by the Vitale Brothers.

below: The text says “Stay Curious”

below: Nearby is a Marriott Hotel (at the corner of North Franklin and East Tyler) and this is what they did to their parking garage.

mural, abstract in shades of blue on the marriott hotel in tampa

below: Another corner of another garage

below: It’s not a mural or a painting but it’s a colorful and fascinating way of covering the exterior of a parking structure. This is DOTS, by sculptor and artist Christian Moeller and it consists of 119 aluminum alloy discs. Each disc is almost 6 feet across and weighs about 40 pounds. They cover the parking part of a new University of Tampa residence building.

large metal discs, as art, cover the exterior of a parking garage, 119 discs, called dots, by artist Christian Moeller

After a quick google search on parking garage art, I have decided that this has become a “thing”. Very trendy by the looks of it.

Photos taken April 2022

Love’s the only engine of survival

Posted on January 6, 2024 by Mary C

Or at least that’s what written on a wall in Tampa Florida that was painted by a number of artists during Tampa Bay Fresh Fest in early 2020. It’s a Leonard Cohen quote.

words painted on a wall in the corner of a green mural that says love's the only engine of survival

mural, green background with water drops, black silhouette of a frog and a gecko climbing the wall

below: Greetings! Peace. A very friendly doorman, by Luisa Padró

mural around a double door, glass, of a large man bending over the top of the door, he is giving peace symbol with two fingers

below: The wall is on Franklin Street.

wall decorated with five murals by street artists on Franklin St in Tampa

below: A snake and a mama kangaroo with a joey in her pocket, the merging of two disparate animal species, by Jerry Cahill

below: She’s got quite the hairdo. Are the pirates coming for her? Or is she just on the side observing the boatload of skull-like figures? This was a collaboration between Artcapco (aka Juan Pablo & Vanessa Parra and Ashley Cantero

mural of a woman with pink hair, up do, with a pirate ship in the background where the pirates are skulls

below: A bear, an arrow, some squares and rectangles, a mixed composition by noirsone

a mural with a brown bear, a white arrow that looks like a cursor on a computer screen

Photos taken April 2022

The Leonard Cohen quote comes from the lyrics of a song, “The Future”. There are many words in the song and you can find them online if you are interested. It’s a rather dark song. This is the stanza that the quote comes from:

“You don’t know me from the wind
You never will, you never did
I’m the little Jew
Who wrote the Bible
I’ve seen the nations rise and fall
I’ve heard their stories, heard them all
But love’s the only engine
Of survival”

downtown heroes and a chicken too

Posted on January 4, 2024 by Mary C

Seen in Tampa

below: A mural by Audrey Jennifer and Matt Kress

downtown Tampa street with mural by Matt Kress and Audrey Jennifer of Ray Charles in a purple bowtie and quarterback Tom Brady in his Buccaneers uniform, number 12

below: This mural was painted in time for Super Bowl LV which was held in Tampa, and featured a Tampa team in the game. Sport and music combined with a star from each – Ray Charles on the left.

below: And on the right, Number 12 for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, quarterback Tom Brady.

below: He even wore a mask for Covid! This portrait of Tom Brady was painted by Kyle Holbrook.

below: Tampa Bay also has a hockey team!, the Tampa Bay Lightning. Number 45 for the Buccaneers is linebacker Devin White. This “Champa Bay” mural was a collaboration between Kyle Holbrook and Ania Amador.

mural with Tampa Bay shoreline, water, as well as a football player and a hockey player

below: “All for Love!” says the rooster (chicken?) on the side of Branscomb Hall at The Portico (part of Hyde Park United Methodist Church) although the title of the mural is actually “For the Love of THIS City”. It was painted by Michelle Sawyer and Tony Krol who work together under the name Illsol.

“For the Love of THIS City”. It was painted by Michelle Sawyer and Tony Krol who work as Illsol. A chicken, two alligators, a heron, some local flowers, and some other Tampa symbols,

below: It features local wildlife living in harmony… like alligators and herons and … chickens? Apparently Ybor City chickens are famous?! This one looks a little grouchy.

close up of chicken and alligator and heron and other wildlife in Illsol mural at The Portico, Hyde Park Methodist church

Photos taken April 2022

riding together in a ’55 convertible

Posted on January 3, 2024 by Mary C

This large mural titled “Oceanic Market Merge Cultures”, was a collaboration between three artists, Lillipore, Sentrock and Birdcap in 2019.

vertical mural along the side of a one storey building, grey background, a group of characters riding in a gold coloured car, painted by lillipore, sentrock and birdcap in Tampa Florida

Closer views, from left to right

below: A very pink lady by Lillipore.

below: The center character is wearing a bird mask, a sign that this portion of the mural was painted by Sentrock aka Joseph Anthony Perez. The mask may have been redder when it was first painted.

below: This fellow with the big round eyes and long banana nose was Birdcap’s (aka Michael Roy) contribution to the mural

Photos taken April 2022

Tampa in words and pictures

Posted on December 31, 2023 by Mary C

below: 2012, commissioned by Tampa Public Art Program, painted by Carl Cowden III. In the letters that spell “Tampa” you can see the Sulphur Springs water tower, the Gasparilla ship and accompanying flotilla, the old Tampa Bay Hotel now the University of Tampa, a streetcar in Ybor City, and a nature scene on the Hillsborough River.

below: Small Tampa Heights mural by artcapco (aka Juan Pablo & Vanessa Parra)

below: Another Tampa Heights mural, this one by illsol (Illuminated Soul)

below: An image of the city

below: Paintings of Old City Hall and the Floridan

Photos taken April 2022

Ybor City murals

Posted on September 9, 2023 by Mary C

Ybor City is an historic neighbourhood close to downtown Tampa Florida. It was founded in the 1880s and was home to a large immigrant population, many of whom were employed in cigar making factories. The cigar industry, and the city, flourished from the 1890s to the Great Depression of the 1930s when demand for cigars dropped.

below: Viva Ybor! Painted by Chico Garcia in 2012. It features a portrait of Vincente Martinez Ybor who brought the cigar making industry to this part of Florida.