Elvis and Marilyn have vanished!

The somewhat bizarre mural of Elvis without hands, Marilyn Monroe, Selena and a floating Prince that ornamented a building on Ft. Lowell Rd. has been painted over. In its place is a rather ordinary sign advertising dog grooming.

While I wish Sublime Grooming the best and great success, I will miss Elvis.

Whoever painted over those dead legends really meant business

There is more than just paint covering up the old mural; it appears that plaster or maybe drywall patch has been added, then a coat or two of white paint before the cute doggie-in-a-bath sign was painted. It would have been better if the painter had tried to indicate the black rim to the fake plaster, but he/she didn’t.

Flaking paint, crumbling bricks, sunlight damage

While many of the murals around Tucson are relatively new-ish and still look good, they are exposed to the same hazards as murals everywhere. Too much sunlight being high on the hazards list; fading away being the result. Most of the murals here have been given a coat or two of sunblock to slow down the fading. There is, however, the start of serious damage showing up on Pagac’s “Harboring Beauty” mural on Toole St. downtown. Peeling paint being the worst of it, for now.

But even old, old old faded murals can be brought back to life. As an example here are two images of the 50 foot tall Anthony Quinn as Zorba the Greek mural in downtown Los Angeles, across from the famous Bradbury building where “Blade Runner” was filmed. There are 30 years of sunlight bleaching the mural on the left and then it was restored to its original state, right.

I doubt, however, that Elvis, Marilyn et.al. will be brought back to life on that building on Ft. Lowell Road. But I plan to keep an eye on it just in case those dead celebrities start emerging through the white paint.