You don’t always have to go to an art gallery or museum to see great art. Sometimes you don’t even have to get out of your car. In our town, as in many others, you can drive or take a short walk and see an incredible variety of large-scale art for free. These big, outdoor artworks are murals, and there are 35 of them right here in Prescott.
After spending years traveling the Southwest photographing small-scale ancient Native American artworks in the forms of petroglyphs and pictographs, it was a natural transition for me to photograph modern, large-scale mural-artworks in Prescott.
Working with the Sharlot Hall Museum and the nonprofit Granite Creek Trail Mural Project, I volunteered to photographically document the work in progress on the new mural along Granite Creek Trail. Concurrently I also began the Prescott Mural Documentation Project to photograph and create a database and exhibition of all the outdoor art murals in Prescott and Prescott Valley. From the beginning some ground rules were set: only ‘artistic’ murals would be documented, no advertising. Only publicly visible murals were photographed; no murals on private property were included to prevent trespassing issues. If a mural is on a school but not visible from a public space, it would not be included, for security reasons. And only outdoor murals were documented; to avoid disrupting anyone’s business, no indoor murals were photographed. The project is an overview of all the publicly visible, outdoor, art murals in the area that can be seen by anyone, anytime, at no cost. As of 2023 35 murals have been found and photographed, and there may be a few ‘hidden’ ones that we've missed.
The in-progress photos of Dana Cohn painting the Granite Creek Trail Mural were made between April and October 2023. I visited the site weekly to photograph the more than 400-foot mural as it grew southward toward Gurley Street. The photographs of all the other murals in Prescott were made during the same period.
In 2023 Prescott added no less than four new murals to our collection. Aside from the new Granite Creek Trail Mural, neighborhood group Friends of Granite Creek Park painted a mural on the underside of the LaGuardia Bridge in Granite Creek Park. Diane Iverson painted one on the exterior of The Lookout facing Willow Creek Road. And a colorful mural has appeared on the front of BiGA restaurant on Miller Valley Road.
Learning about each mural as they were photographed, I’m pretty sure the oldest is the one on the Salvation Army building on Montezuma Street. You’ve probably driven past it a zillion times and didn’t notice; it’s the one with the lighthouse in the corner. No one I spoke with at the Salvation Army knows much about it, but it’s thought to have been painted sometime in the late 1980s or early ‘90s. Interestingly, the lighthouse is made from an old water heater.
There are some well known murals here, others are relatively undiscovered. The better known murals include Art for All, the big one next to the downtown parking garage, painted by a small group known as Mural Mice Universal in 2007. Whiskey Row Alley contains a number of murals, including the postcard-like Welcome to Prescott behind the Hotel St. Michael, by Dana Cohn and Juliana Hutchins. Beyond Words is one of the largest in town, wrapping around two sides of the Prescott Public Library. A three-story rendering of Teddy Roosevelt graces the back of the Burmister Building. The mural on the east side of Custom Steel Fabrication on White Spar Road changes frequently, repainted often by the building’s owner.
Among the less known murals in the area are the sunset painted on a Prescott College dorm by Dana Cohn, and the wonderful aquatic-themed mural on the Electrik Needle Tattoo & Body Piercing shop in Prescott Valley, done by owner Rudy Jaime. Rudy also painted what is possibly the least known mural in town, on the back of the Era Salon on Sheldon Street. When you visit the new Granite Creek Trail mural be sure to check out the murals on the rear of the building that houses Rosa’s Pizzeria.
There are many more murals to find in Prescott. I’ve spoken with a number of city organizations about creating an ‘outdoor-art driving tour’ brochure with a map to all the outdoor murals, and I hope someone produces one (I’ll supply the photos!).
Outdoor art has a long history, dating back to prehistory. As long as humans have walked the Earth we’ve made art. Outdoor public art says we care about our surroundings — a plain surface can be decorated, interest created and the environment brightened. Outdoor art tells our stories and who we are.
Beginning on October 28 you can see photographs of all of Prescott’s murals in one place, the West Gallery of Sharlot Hall Museum. The exhibit will be on display through the end of the year. Soon all of the photographs from the project will be included in a searchable database maintained by Sharlot Hall Museum.
