Many of you responded to my original survey, and the responses stirred up new questions I’ve been researching ever since. When I asked if you felt like Tucson public art represented you, the answer was a resounding no. Just one person said they could see themselves in the works curated by the city. You all felt strongly that the process for getting into public art was prohibitive, and that most of you don’t even try.

In that time, I researched city programs, the Arts Foundation of Tucson and Southern Arizona (AFTSA), and the agreements between the two. I had conversations with muralists, wrote a few essays about art and systems, and I was interviewed about aesthetic gentrification — a conversation that deserves its own piece. I was invited to apply for the Public Art and Community Design Committee (PACDC) with the City of Tucson. I threw my hat in the ring, and as of February, I’ve got a four-year seat, appointed by the AFTSA.

My readership is mostly artists now. So I want to write with that in mind: that you’re here as an interested party to the public art conversation because you are (or could be, or can’t be) part of the process.

I think uncovering these issues is going to take a personal touch, so I want you to know a little more about me and why I’m on this mission.

I’m an entrepreneur. I’ve been fundraising and selling things for profit since I needed quarters for the pencil machine in elementary school. When I moved to Tucson in 2020, many of the people I met were artists — and I noticed pretty quickly that when they described their professional misery… the things they hated doing sounded an awful lot like my hobbies.

Artists struggle with something: they mostly don’t want to be doing business stuff. Sure, drop in and be creative — and then snap out of it because you need to write contracts, update the website, post on the socials, apply for a grant, and, not to mention, go to a paying job to keep the lights on. It’s kinda maddening.

Here’s the thing: I genuinely love that stuff. Contracts, grants, fundraising, navigating systems — that’s my idea of a good time. So when I kept hearing that the administrative burden was keeping artists from even trying to access public art opportunities, my heart sank.

The craft of painting — really painting — requires deep focus, ongoing research, years of skill-building and refinement. You don’t get top-notch muralists out of people spending sixty percent of their time doing paperwork. The work suffers. The artist suffers. And the city gets less than it should.

My personal belief is that artists are a necessary part of a healthy society. In hard times especially, communities use art to compost, process, grieve, and grow new things. Creativity is a blessing and should be tended to well. Artists should be supported. They should be well-funded. AND THAT AIN’T THE CASE. It bothers me. And when I’m bothered, I start asking questions.

I will continue to write about what I find as this unfolds. It’s clear that the public art program is disconnected from the lived experience of the people, and I will keep digging into that. So, thank you to those of you who responded to my original survey. The time you spent has not gone to waste.

-Dusty

If you’re not actually allergic to public meetings and bureaucratic hoop-jumping, please consider Zooming in to a PACDC meeting. They’re the second Wednesday of every month at 3:30pm — I’d love to hear what you think, how it does or doesn’t help you as an artist, and anything else on your mind.

So consider this an assignment.

The Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona is offering its 2026 Artist Grant — up to $10,000, awarded directly to you, for artistic services you’re probably already doing or want to do. The deadline is March 19th. That’s two weeks away.

Here’s what makes this grant different from the usual “submit your portfolio and pray” model: you identify a Client you want to work with, propose the services, and the money goes to you — not to an organization, not to a venue, not to an intermediary. To you.

The client can be almost anyone: a nonprofit, a school, a business, a government agency, another artist, a community group. And the services are broadly defined — murals, workshops, mentorship, consultation, facilitation, photography, performance, curriculum design. If it comes from your artistic practice, it likely qualifies.

The key requirements:

• You’ve been a working artist since 2019 or earlier

• You live and work in Southern Arizona (Pima, Santa Cruz, Cochise counties, Tribal Nations, and surrounding areas)

• You have — or can get — a co-signed agreement (MOU) with your chosen client before you submit

• You did NOT receive a 2025 ARPA Artist Grant

That co-signed MOU is the thing that trips people up. It’s not bureaucratic red tape — it’s actually useful. You and your client agree in writing on what you’re making, when, and what it’s worth. For artists who often work on handshakes, this is the grant that makes you do something good for yourself.

Award amounts: $2,500 / $5,000 / $10,000 — no matching funds required.

Application portal: artsfoundtucson.submittable.com

Questions? Contact Gabriela Muñoz at grants@artsfoundtucson.org or (520) 460-4483.

The Arts Foundation also recorded a full info session webinar — over an hour of walkthrough — which is embedded below. Worth the time if you’re serious about applying.

This is public money, allocated specifically for Southern Arizona artists. It exists because people argued that artists deserve to be paid for civic work. The least we can do is use it.

Good luck!

Across the city, public art projects are funded and installed - but who has a say in the artists chosen and the artwork created? Well, it can be you!

Here’s how it works - The Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona publishes an art call with a project outline and a budget. Artists apply, and an art panel is convened. Panels consist of at least 7 people: artists, community members, the project manager, and a design representative. The panel reviews the applicants and chooses the artist or artist group to be contracted for the job. Then the panel works with the artist(s) to guide the direction of the artwork.

You don’t need a background in art to participate! The process is straightforward and includes an onboarding session to get you up to speed on the expectations. You also receive a stipend for any panel you participate in! I mean, it’s not a bad gig.

If you care about our cultural heritage through the lens of publicly funded public art, I encourage you to try out this avenue of participation.

You can find out more through the Arts Foundation - you can also submit an interest form with the Arts Foundation here.

This idea, visual nutrition, offers a way to understand public art not as decoration, but as part of a city’s overall health. Just as a balanced diet supports the body, a balanced visual environment supports cultural memory, emotional resonance, and a sense of belonging.

A Nutritional Metaphor for the Urban Landscape

Using the metaphor of food helps clarify the different roles public art can play. These categories aren’t value judgments—they describe how murals function in the wider ecosystem of a city.

Fresh Fruits

Real nutrition: Vitamins, quick energy, bright flavors that wake the senses.
Visual equivalent: Murals that bring immediate delight—bold color, playful imagery, and accessible joy. They energize the streetscape, offering a burst of lightness in the daily visual diet.

Grains

Real nutrition: Long-lasting carbohydrates; stable, foundational energy.
Visual equivalent: Place-setting landscapes, neighborhood markers, and familiar visual cues. These murals ground the viewer—forming the city’s visual backbone and giving it a sense of steadiness.

Desert Roots

Real nutrition: Deep minerals and slow-digesting starches pulled from the oldest parts of the land.
Visual equivalent: Murals rooted in Indigenous cosmologies, cultural memory, and land-based identity. They carry continuity, depth, and the stories that keep a place connected to its origins.

Hearty Beans

Real nutrition: Protein, fiber, gut health—sustained nourishment with high staying power.
Visual equivalent: Works dense with narrative: political murals, community histories, portraits of struggle and resilience. These pieces strengthen the visual landscape by adding long-term meaning and substance.

Bitter Herbs

Real nutrition: Digestive support and detoxification; foods that bring clarity through their sharpness.
Visual equivalent: Art that interrupts complacency. These murals surface difficult truths, confront erasure, or challenge dominant narratives. They clear stagnation and sharpen collective awareness.

Ferments

Real nutrition: Probiotics, acidity, and transformative depth—foods that improve with time.
Visual equivalent: Experimental or surreal works that don’t reveal themselves immediately. As the city changes, these murals take on new layers, supporting cultural “gut health” through curiosity and complexity.

Empty Calories

Real nutrition: Quick energy with no minerals or fiber—pleasing but fleeting.
Visual equivalent: Decorative or corporate murals designed to fill visual space without offering meaning or memory. They look polished but contribute little to the cultural diet.

No single category defines a healthy landscape. A city composed entirely of light, whimsical imagery can feel ungrounded. A city filled only with heavy narrative becomes overwhelming. Balance—not uniformity—is what nourishes the public imagination.

The Skyline as a Garden

Thinking in terms of nutrition naturally leads to the idea of stewardship. Much like gardeners tending a field, the people who create, commission, and maintain public art shape the city’s diet. Their choices determine what grows where, what takes root, and what becomes dominant.

A skyline built around a single aesthetic—no matter how skillful—resembles a monoculture. It may be recognizable, even striking, but it lacks resilience. In contrast, a landscape shaped by many voices and grounded in different traditions creates a richer and more sustainable visual environment. Diversity here isn’t decorative: it’s structural.

Why This Framework Matters

Public art is never neutral. Even when a mural avoids explicit commentary, it still communicates values, priorities, and histories. A nutritional approach helps make that influence legible without relying on technical language or insider vocabulary. It reframes the conversation into something more useful:

• What role does this piece play in the wider landscape?

• What does it add to the city’s overall “diet”?

• What kinds of nourishment are abundant—and what’s missing?

• How does this mural support memory, belonging, or critique?

• Where are the imbalances across neighborhoods?

Patterns become clearer through this lens. So do absences. Some districts may receive only sweet, surface-level imagery; others may bear the full weight of historical narrative. Noticing these dynamics shifts attention from individual walls to the collective impact of many walls seen together.

Toward a Healthier Visual Environment

A well-nourished city does not depend on a single style or message. Its strength comes from variety—images that acknowledge history, celebrate identity, spark joy, and invite reflection.
The visual nutrition framework simply offers a way to understand and articulate that variety, to recognize when something is flourishing or when something is missing.

Public art feeds the spirit of a place.
Visual nutrition helps us pay attention to what we are collectively consuming.

Find out more about the mosaic…

Tucson Murals Project

David G. Herrera & Ramon Quiroz Park Mosaic (2006?)

Read more

5 months ago · Dusty Reyes

Some no’s come like thunder. Others arrive in a whisper, a glance, a pause, a shift in tone that says, please don’t.

This piece began as a meditation on those quieter refusals - the ones we miss, or ignore, or try to explain away. It’s not a callout. It’s not a clapback. It’s a long, slow turning of the soil around questions that keep showing up in my life: What does it mean to listen? To be in relationship? To be changed by what someone tells you, even if it’s uncomfortable?

It touches on art. On community. On cultural symbolism and personal boundaries. But more than anything, it’s about what happens when we’re asked to let go - and what becomes possible when we do.

I. Introduction: The Concept of the Quiet No

There’s a kind of refusal that doesn’t come with barricades, bullhorns, or headlines. It isn’t accompanied by protest signs or formal press statements. It’s quieter than that. It lives in the commentary, the sighs, the eyebrows raised just enough to register a boundary. It lives in a pause, a shift in tone, a subtle but unmistakable withdrawal of consent. A quiet no.

This kind of no gets ignored all the time, not because it isn’t spoken, but because we’ve trained ourselves away from hearing it. In some cases, we’ve learned to only respond to no when it comes with a threat, a lawsuit, or a body on the line. There are consequences to that; not just on an individual level, but at a community scale.

This is an essay about the quiet no; how to hear it, why it matters, and what it asks of us when we do.

II. The Cultural No: Appropriation Without Listening

Recently, a local design project made waves in some of Tucson’s creative circles. The imagery references a sacred cultural tradition: a visual aesthetic rooted in death rituals and ancestral practices. The artist behind it is from here. Their intentions were not malicious, but the result sparked discomfort and critique from within the community being represented.

A fellow artist shared the design publicly… not to denounce, but to question. He asked: Why these images? What’s their meaning in this context? Who benefits from this symbolism, and who is being flattened by it? In doing so, he extended an invitation to examine the deeper implications of representing culture without lived connection. The comments that followed weren’t responding to the original artwork - they were responding to the critique - and that distinction matters.

Because what unfolded in that thread was not a pile-on. It was a council. A layered, multi-voiced response grounded in care, concern, and clarity. Some voices were sharp, others tender. But they all circled the same point: This doesn’t feel right. Please don’t do this.

It was a quiet no. And like many quiet no’s, it was ignored.

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III. Consent and Cultural Symbols

One of the most pivotal conversations I’ve had around cultural appropriation brought us around to consent - not just as a metaphor, but as a real framework for understanding harm. When someone uses sacred symbols or imagery from a community they’re not in relationship with, they often bypass consent entirely. Sometimes they know they’re doing it, but often, they don’t. They simply don’t realize that what they’re referencing is sacred - and that alone tells us something.

Because the question isn’t did you mean harm? The question is: are you close enough to this community to know better?

If we treated cultural borrowing with the same care we apply to personal intimacy, we’d ask:

• Have I been invited in?

• Do I know the story behind this symbol?

• Have I listened to the people who carry it?

• Am I prepared to hear - and honor - a no?

Appropriation skips those questions. It says: I saw it, I like it, I can use it. It turns lineage into decoration and reverence into style. It confuses access with permission.

Sometimes people truly don’t know what they’re stepping into. But if you don’t know whether something is sacred, that’s a sign you may not be close enough to carry it. Relationship gives you clues. If you’re in deep relationship, you know who to ask. If you don’t know who to ask, or don’t think anyone needs to be asked, that’s worth pausing over.

When community members say, “This isn’t yours,” the ethical response is, “I hear you. I’ll let go” - even if I don’t fully understand. Consent isn’t about whether it makes sense to you. It’s about whether the people impacted are heard, respected, and free to say no… and to have that no honored.

IV. Land as Sacred Symbol

Cultural symbols aren’t the only places where no gets ignored. Land is another. And too often, Indigenous communities are forced to be on the defense on multiple fronts.

Across the continent and beyond, sacred mountains, burial sites, and biodiverse ecosystems have been protected for generations by the people who belong to them. These communities say no - to mining, to mountaintop removal, to oil pipelines, to massive observatories built atop ancestral lands. These no’s are often quiet at first: letters, legal filings, songs, ceremonies. Sometimes they remain quiet out of strategy. Sometimes out of exhaustion.

But when those no’s are not honored, when they are bulldozed over, ignored, or rebranded as “progress” something sacred is lost, not just for “them” but for all of us. A beauty, a belonging, a biodiversity, is tamped down and snuffed out. In the aftermath, the destruction is reframed as normal, as inevitable, as if it was always meant to be this way.

That’s what happens when we scale up the refusal to hear a quiet no: it becomes systemic erasure. It becomes desecration.

V. When Artists Refuse to Pivot

Anyone who's done commissioned work knows: pivoting is part of the job. You pitch something, someone says no, you reassess. You try again. It’s not personal - it’s process. Feedback is part of the contract, especially when the work is public-facing.

So why, when it comes to cultural critique, do some artists dig in their heels?

Part of it is ego: the deeply human desire not to be wrong or disliked. For many artists, critique doesn’t just challenge the work; it threatens the self. Especially when something has already been shared, or when time and energy have been poured into it. There’s a kind of perceptual sunk cost at play: I’ve already gone this far, I can’t go back now. And layered on top of that, some of us carry the quiet belief that inspiration makes something sacred - that if an idea arrived through spark or vision, it must be right. But inspiration isn’t permission. And creative clarity doesn’t cancel out the need for cultural care. When those feelings stack up - ego, effort, and enchantment - they can easily harden into resistance. And that resistance keeps people from looking deeper.

The truth is, if you can't pivot, if you can't take in a boundary or a critique without melting into defensiveness, then you're not yet ready to do public work. Especially not work that draws on cultural iconography or histories that aren't yours. Especially not work that turns a profit off imagery born from grief, resistance, or sacred tradition.

Sometimes, clinging to an idea is a bit like a dog with a bone… teeth bared, fixated, unwilling to release even when someone gently, or urgently, asks them to drop it. The more someone says, "This is hurting me," the harder the grip becomes. What began as inspiration becomes possession. That’s not creativity. That’s compulsion masquerading as passion, and possibly a defense mechanism dressed up as conviction.

Being asked to change direction is not a personal attack. It’s an invitation to look deeper, investigate the why behind your design, and to interrogate your relationship to the symbols you’re using. And to decide what kind of artist you want to be when faced with discomfort.

Letting go of an idea doesn’t make your art less meaningful. It makes your practice more ethical.

VI. Gaslighting & Manipulation: The Private Counsel Cop-Out

In moments of public critique, a pattern I’ve noticed is to suggest the issue should have been raised privately. "Why haven’t you mentioned this to me before?" or "Call me directly next time" becomes a way of sidestepping what was already said - clearly, collectively, and in public.

This shift from public dialogue to private reassurance often functions as damage control. But it also rewrites the dynamic. It removes witnesses. It individualizes the critique, making it easier to dismiss, minimize, or deflect. It isolates the person offering feedback and subtly repositions the critic as a problem, rather than a participant in an honest cultural conversation.

In this particular case, the artist was not being blindsided or attacked. The post was public. The comment thread was visible to all. The feedback had context, coherence, and community behind it. To then suggest those voices should have made their case one-on-one shifts the burden onto the very people who were brave enough to speak.

To dismiss public feedback because it wasn’t whispered in private, or because it wasn’t soft enough, isn’t just tone policing. It’s a refusal to acknowledge the collective as a legitimate source of wisdom.

VII. A Community Already Spoke

It’s important to remember here: the community responses we’re talking about weren’t directed at the original artwork itself, but at a public critique of that artwork. One artist, invested in the cultural wellbeing of his community, shared the design not to call out, but to ask important questions. The comment thread that followed became a public forum; unplanned but deeply intentional. People gathered to speak, to explain, to offer perspective. That matters.

The people who responded are not outsiders looking in. They are Tucsonans. Artists. Cultural practitioners. People with lived experience, ancestral memory, and deep ties to the traditions being referenced. In other words: the people with the most at stake.

It wasn’t a random comment thread. It was a spontaneous council. A community conversation unfolding in public space. And like many gatherings of care, it was layered: some responses were direct, others tender, others fatigued. But they all carried the same throughline: this isn’t right.

When you’re genuinely open to feedback, you don’t cherry-pick the tone you prefer. You don’t ask people to repackage their pain for your comfort. Listening means receiving what’s said in the way it’s offered; not demanding that it arrive as a neatly-worded invitation.

It also means understanding that community critique is already a form of generosity. The people didn’t have to say anything. They could’ve rolled their eyes, quietly disengaged, and gone on with their lives. But instead, they chose to speak. That’s not hostility. That’s investment.

When a collective of people takes the time to respond - publicly, vulnerably, and with rooted perspective - that is the counsel. That is the feedback. That is the opportunity.

To ignore that moment because it didn’t arrive through a private channel or in a deferential tone is to miss the point. And to miss the point repeatedly is to fracture the trust that makes real community possible.

VIII. Beyond Cultural Appropriation: The No in Everyday Life

This isn’t just about public art. The refusal to accept no shows up everywhere - in bedrooms, boardrooms, community meetings, and text threads.

We live in a culture that teaches us to negotiate our way past other people’s boundaries. To push a little, and sometimes a lot. To circle back. To reframe our ask so it feels more palatable. But a no… whether loud or quiet… deserves respect the first time it’s spoken.

If someone says no to intimacy, or to emotional labor, or to participating in your idea - it’s not a prompt for argument. It’s a complete sentence. Anything else flirts with coercion.

And when we practice ignoring no in the personal, it trains us to do the same in the political. When we override boundaries casually, we become desensitized to the damage we cause.

Listening to no isn’t weakness. It’s a form of strength. It shows we know how to live in relationship, not domination.

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IX. The Practice of Letting Go

Letting go isn’t always easy. It cuts against our conditioning. We learn to persist, to hold on, to double down when we feel misunderstood. Our egos cling tightly to ideas, identities, and the things we've made - especially when those things are tied to how we see ourselves. But clinging to them at all costs is a recipe for harm. It crowds out curiosity. It calcifies disconnection. It replaces openness with obsession.

In Buddhist practice, attachment is the root of suffering. Not just attachment to objects, but to being right, to being admired, or to being interpreted charitably. In community, that attachment can turn moments of invitation into moments of rupture. We mistake critique for rejection. We defend instead of listening. We explain instead of reflecting. We argue for what we intended instead of tending to what we impacted.

When someone says, "This hurts," and your instinct is to explain or rationalize, you’ve already lost the thread. Letting go doesn’t mean you were wrong. It means you’re choosing to value the relationship more than your need to be right.

Letting go doesn’t always feel fair and it doesn’t always feel resolved. But that’s the practice: to make peace with the incomplete, to set something down not because it’s convenient or satisfying, but because someone asked you to.

Letting go doesn’t mean agreeing. It means honoring boundaries. It means pausing your grip long enough to notice who else might be getting hurt by your hold.

It means choosing relationship over righteousness.

X. Conclusion: Becoming Better Listeners

The quiet no is more than a boundary, it's also a mirror. It reflects back who we are when we’re asked to stop. It reveals whether our values are performative or practiced, whether we crave control more than connection, whether we hear only volume or have the sensitivity to listen between the lines.

It asks: Can you attune to discomfort without shutting down? Can you hear what’s being said beneath the surface? Can you respect a boundary even when it's not delivered in your preferred tone? Can you release the thing you love when it’s causing someone else pain - even if you don’t fully understand why?

This applies to artists, yes. But it applies to all of us. To teachers, to lovers, to leaders, to neighbors. Wherever we show up in community, the quiet no will meet us there. It will not arrive with sirens. Often, it will sound like restraint, fatigue, like, "Please don’t."

Our task is to become fluent in that language. To hear it the first time and to let it change us.

We are not owed yeses. And we are not entitled to use what isn't ours.

The next time someone tells you no - softly, thoughtfully, or with deep emotion - don’t argue.

Consider dropping the bone.

Just pivot.

Many of you know I’ve been steadily building out systems across several community efforts: archiving, supporting, organizing, and making space for stories that deserve to be held with intention. One of those projects, TucsonMurals.com, is finally live. This week, I’m excited to share what’s been taking shape behind the scenes.

The Tucson Murals project began in 2006, when Randy Garsee, a longtime Tucson news anchor, started photographing murals and posting them to a Blogspot site. His entries were simple - photo, location, maybe a few words - but together they created something enduring. After Randy’s passing, Jerry Peek picked up the work, expanding the blog with structure, location data, and attention to detail. Later, David Aber joined in, sharing hundreds of photos and entries until his own passing earlier this year.

Together, they created one of the most comprehensive records of public art in Tucson.

Now I’m stepping in… not to replace or redo their work, but to carry it forward.

The new site, TucsonMurals.com, is a companion to the original archive. It introduces new features: a mural map, submission forms, artist highlights, and curated features designed to invite fresh eyes and deeper appreciation. The original Blogspot site remains active and unchanged, and I’m committed to keeping it accessible. Over time, I’ll begin preserving that archive in a more permanent form—but for now, this launch marks a new layer rather than a full migration.

This is an invitation to explore. To look closer. To notice what’s been here all along.

Tucson’s murals tell stories in every color, shape, and corner of the city. This site exists to help those stories be seen and shared. I’m here as a steward to support the work already done, make room for new contributions, and ensure this visual history continues to grow.

You can explore the new project at TucsonMurals.com. The submission form is open, the Instagram is starting to bloom, and new content will be added regularly.

To Randy, Jerry, and David: thank you for the foundation.
To Tucson: thank you for the walls.

Not just to be made, but to be seen.

Behind each painting, mural, sculpture, or photograph lies an entire network of effort. There are coordinators, fabricators, archivists, preparators, funders, policy navigators, landlords, translators, and community advocates; people whose names don’t end up in headlines or on plaques, but without whom the work would never come to life in the world.

This is not a new realization, but one that’s deepened. It has moved from observation into something relational. I feel a growing tenderness for the unseen scaffolding around each cultural offering. There is an artistry, a sacred patience, in this kind of stewardship - one that deserves reverence, even if it never announces itself.

What We Don’t See

Before a mural is painted, someone must negotiate the use of the wall; sometimes with the city, sometimes with a private property owner, sometimes with both. Permits must be pulled. Contracts negotiated. Funding secured. In some cases, there are efforts to bring artists across borders, align visions across bureaucratic divides, and move creativity through systems not designed to hold it. And sometimes, after all of that… after the months of meetings, correspondence, coordination… nothing is painted at all.

I recently heard about a binational mural project that fell apart just as it neared the finish line. Artists were ready. Visas were processed. A wall had been chosen. The groundwork had been painstakingly laid. And still, the project collapsed. Not because the vision wasn’t strong or the artists weren’t committed, but because the systems around it, those many-legged tables of regulation and diplomacy, buckled under their own weight.

There’s no mural to point to. No event photos. No final image for the public. But the labor was real. The attempt matters. And it’s important to remember that there are many ways art lives and dies: some in the light, some quietly, in planning documents and unanswered emails.

Let’s compare that to another kind of art experience like a photographic archive, donated to a university, cared for across decades, then finally displayed in a curated retrospective. Two very different outcomes. Both were shaped by dozens of people, most of whom will never be named.

Stewardship Takes Many Forms

What moves me isn’t just the artwork, but the full ecology it grows from. An entire substrate beneath what we see includes legal frameworks, backchannel negotiations, design revisions, object handling, light metering, insurance policies, delivery routes, grant cycles. There are long nights, tender negotiations, calloused hands. Sometimes there are grieving families gifting a lifetime of work to an archive. Sometimes there’s a janitor who keeps a space clean so it can host a neighborhood exhibit.

It’s not just about logistics - it’s about care.

I’ve come to see this care as a kind of cultural composting. These seemingly disconnected acts, whether funding proposals, ladder climbs, or archival glove use, create the conditions for cultural material to live. Without them, nothing holds. Or nothing lasts.

And what’s fascinating is how much of this labor goes unnoticed, even by the communities it’s meant to serve. The end user rarely sees the scaffolding. They don’t have to. But I think we’re all better for learning to look a little closer.

When the Work Doesn’t Show

It’s easy to celebrate the fruit on the tree. But not every seedling grows. Not every bloom survives the season. I’m thinking, too, about the projects that never quite come to fruition - not because the idea wasn’t strong, but because the surrounding conditions weren’t ready. That matters, too.

Art doesn't just need talent, it also needs support. It needs containers. It needs people willing to navigate resistance, red tape, and underfunded departments. When projects fall apart, the effort isn’t erased. It becomes part of the soil, part of what informs what grows next.

And we rarely mark those moments. But we should.

A Quiet Offering

So this post isn’t about one exhibit or one artist or one conversation. It’s about all the people who keep showing up to hold creative possibility, even when no one’s watching. It’s about the hands that measure and mount, the hearts that rally for funding, the quiet presence of those who keep tending culture even when the reward is uncertain.

There’s a certain humility to this work. A rhythm. A devotion that doesn’t ask to be seen, but deserves acknowledgment.

Next time you stand before a mural, or walk through a gallery, or read a handmade zine from a little library, pause. Let yourself wonder what it took to get it there. Ask who was behind it, beside it, holding it up. Consider the ecosystem. The hands. The care.

Beauty may be what we notice. But the stewardship behind it is where the real magic lives.

It’s the feeling that arises when you’re about to depict something that matters. Not just to you - but to a place, a people, a story that’s older than you are.

I recently heard local artist Ruben Urrea Moreno (@rubenumoreno) on Cultivating Indigenous Voices with Valentina Andrew, on KXCI, speaking about a comic book cover he created: one that depicts I’itoi, Elder Brother, the creator of O’odham people. In the interview, Ruben explained that I’itoi is rarely depicted; he’s spoken of, remembered, embodied in stories - but rarely visualized.

So when Ruben was asked to illustrate him, it wasn’t just another gig.
It was a responsibility.

He shared that the process made him sweat. His hands were clammy.
He redid the face more than twenty times.

That’s the kind of nervousness I’m talking about. Not fear of inadequacy - an embodied respect. A somatic signal that said: This isn't about me. I want to get this right.

There’s a physical intelligence to that kind of pause. The body slows down, insists on care. It’s not anxious - it’s attuned.

I’ve witnessed that in other artists, too. Especially those who work with ancestral memory, cultural legacy, or sacred symbols. There’s a deep sense of listening. A desire not just to express something, but to do right by it. And that desire often shows up as sweat, do-overs, more research, shaking, silence. The body knows when it’s carrying something precious.

Let’s contrast that with another kind of artmaking we often see in public spaces:
Art as charm. As surface. As local color for mass appeal.

That kind of work might be technically skillful, even beloved - but it moves fast. Confident. It doesn’t pause. There’s no clamminess. No friction. Just the ease of someone who’s used to being seen.

I’m not talking about right or wrong, but exploring the relationship to the work.
One is about stewardship.
The other is about style.

And you can feel the difference.
One invites reverence.
The other invites a selfie.

This is about tuning into the quality of attention we bring to creation. It’s about honoring the fact that some images aren’t just images. They’re stories with stakes. And sometimes, the stakes live in our sweat.

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That’s what I want more space for. Not just what looks good on a wall, but what hums in the hands. What makes an artist pause, breathe, redo, and respect.

That’s the kind of nervousness I trust.
The kind that says:
I care enough to feel this in my body.

Thanks to Ruben Urrea Moreno for sharing his conceptual drawings for this piece and for sharing his time with me.

Can you guess some of the themes that have come up? Things like - what hoops artists have to jump through to get paying gigs with the city, cultural appropriation, gatekeeping, and other buzzwords that get people really upset.

So, now I’m going to unpack some of that and spread all our bullshit out on the lawn. Wanna help me out?

I’ve got a short survey that gets the ball rolling. Nothing is required, so you can answer as much or as little as you’d like. To fill out the survey, you do have to subscribe to my newsletter, but it’s simple to unfollow if you decide you really aren’t interested in what I’ve got to say.

Thanks for caring enough to say something, and for participating in my project.

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As ‘Tucson turns 250,’ I’m asking who decides what the city looks like and who gets left out of the frame.

From the front door at Xerocraft, I can see two massive murals painted by the same artist. One just went up, and now I’ve learned there’s possibly another coming - this time as part of Tucson’s 250th birthday celebration. And I’ll be honest: I’m bored.

It’s not because the murals are bad. It’s not about the artist. It’s about the pattern. Over and over, the same names, the same aesthetic, and the same “safe” stories are used to define what Tucson looks like, especially in our downtown. Often, they’re backed by public funding.

I know many brilliant local artists, who could bring vibrancy, tension, joy, and soul to our walls - and who need paid opportunities like this. But they’re not getting the calls. They’re not being commissioned to tell Tucson’s story. So whose story is this?

Public money, private decisions?

Public art is supposed to be for all of us. But too often, the process is opaque. So far in my research, information on who gets chosen and how much they get paid is not readily available.

The lack of transparency matters. Because when the same people are awarded large commissions again and again, it’s not just a style choice. It becomes a system. A feedback loop where the aesthetic of a few starts to stand in for the identity of an entire city.

And that’s where it starts to feel less like celebration… and more like marketing?

Aesthetic gentrification?

This might sound dramatic, but it’s a real phenomenon: the use of public art to “brand” an area for tourism or redevelopment, rather than reflecting the richness and complexity of who lives here.

When murals become part of a beautification strategy that doesn’t include the communities being displaced, that’s not public art, it’s aesthetic gentrification.

We deserve beauty that reflects us: the whole, messy, layered, multilingual, underfunded, brilliant city we actually are.

What would it mean to make it truly public?

I’ve been working on this essay for a while, asking: How public is public art, really? And what would it mean to change the system?

This isn’t about shading artists or pointing fingers. It’s about learning and reimagining how decisions get made, and who gets to be in the room when they’re made.

So I want to hear from you.

Whether you’re an artist, a mural-lover, or someone who’s just watching it all happen - I’ve made a short survey to gather community thoughts. I’d love if you took a few minutes to share:

You don’t have to be an artist to respond. Your perspective matters.

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Pato paints what matters to him, and he does the research to back it up. He doesn’t shy away from political or cultural themes—and frankly, I think that’s what public art should do. But too often, cities and institutions want the aesthetic of art without the ideas. They want color, not confrontation. That’s why I think this mural matters.

Let’s not forget Diego Rivera’s Detroit Industry Murals, painted in the middle of the Great Depression. A Mexican Marxist depicting American factory workers in the heart of the Motor City? That was a bold move—funded by the Ford family, no less. The mural stirred controversy then and still sparks conversation today. It’s a reminder that powerful art doesn’t happen by accident. It happens when people in charge say yes, even when the content might challenge the status quo.

The University of Arizona’s School of Journalism gave Pato the go-ahead to make something real. And he delivered.

The mural, splashed across a long hallway inside the school, pulses with saturated pinks, purples, and blues. Barrel cacti glow in neon hues. Saguaros double as antennas, broadcasting symbols in electric bolts and glowing icons. One holds a vintage camera. Old-school televisions float across the sky, showing scenes from the moon landing and a mission to Mars.

In the center of the piece is a striking black typewriter. A scorched piece of paper emerges from its rollers, bearing a powerful message in four languages:

• S-wohocudag (O’odham)

• Lutu’uria (Yaqui)

• Verdad (Spanish)

• Truth (English)

These aren’t just translations. They’re reminders of whose truths get told—and whose get erased.

Blood stains mark the typewriter’s keys—specifically those that spell “truth.” But look closer at the letter strikes and you’ll see “LOVE.” Above the spools, a quiet desert vignette: a saguaro silhouetted on a hill, printed in gray on black.

Pato’s visual language is deeply rooted. His murals often feature braids, hands, hummingbirds, and references to O’odham and Yaqui culture. This one includes a floating head—braided and poised—wrapped in a green visor of data, maps, graphs, and university logos. The Man in the Maze ties off the end of one braid, threading tradition into the future.

I saw the early mock-up before he started painting, and I was already excited. But the finished mural is more layered and detailed than I expected. Honestly, it deserves a wall outdoors, where the whole city can see it.

And that brings me back to my original point: municipalities need to be brave. If cities want to support the arts, they have to support artists with a point of view. Political art isn’t a threat—it’s a pulse check. It tells us who we are and where we’re headed.

Tucson, are you listening?

Check out more of Pato Aguilar’s work on instagram: @patoaguilarart