Artist to repair twice-tagged mural

TUCSON, AZ (Tucson News Now) - The artist behind one of Tucson's largest murals will be making some repairs Friday, March 2.

The mural at Sixth Street and North Stone Avenue was defaced by taggers a week ago and the search is on for the vandals responsible.

In the meantime, Joe Pagac, the artist, is heading back out to fix the damage.

He said he is frustrated because this is not the first time this has happened to his mural. Pagac said in the past year, the mural has been hit twice.

He said he heard about the crime on Feb. 23 when he woke up to dozens of phone calls and text messages.

Over the past week, he has been overwhelmed by the community's support. People have been offering to help him paint and donate money to pay for the supplies but he isn't accepting anything.

He said he took donations the last time the mural was tagged, so this time he wants to do the repairs on his own.

"It is really nice of the community to offer to help and it really shows that they love the mural and are really in support of it," he said. "So that's always very heartwarming to see and even though a few people did this, in general most people love it. So that's always really really nice."

Pagac said the vandals covered some complex areas of the artwork, so he'll be at the mural for 8 to 12 hours on Friday and Saturday fixing the damage.

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