In-The-Works: Public Art + Creative Place Making

Another in a series of posts featuring some of the public art on the streets of The New Urban DTMesa, thanks to Valley Metro along the line of the Central Mesa Extension for light rail transit that started on-the-tracks here in August 2015.
Major monumental public artworks are in place at the three lightrail stations.
"Twilight Garden", an interactive illuminated acrylic sculpture grouping is in place in Morris Park right next to "The Shadow of A Memory", a serious of bright red iron panels.
Best to see these up-close and personal, walking or cycling around downtown. Take the time to absorb the environments and "message" if there is one in public art.
 

Now at the NW corner of Main Street and Hilbert here's a new addition to the urban streetscape: Robert Delgado's "Palo Verde" that wraps around the corner where you can see the ongoing placement of tiles that have photo silk-screened images of the culture and people of Mesa - past and present - from the archives and artist's photos.
In the image to the right, taken yesterday, readers can see the meticulous attention to details with tiles marked and numbered to get attached to what was a plain block wall facing east on Hibbert Street.

The installation on the walls is an outline of the Palo Verde tree, native to the Sonora Desert of northwest Mexico and Arizona. The Seri people, an indigenous and native group from Mexico, called the tree ziipxol.
They used to grind up the seeds for flour [like native groups with mesquite], boil the green pods with meat, and eat the sweet green seeds as well as the flowers. [411 from plaques].
The art you see here comes from airbrush over photosilkscreen experiments in cut fired tile.

About the Artist
Roberto "Tito" Delgado is a Los Angeles native, born and raised in the Koreatown area.  After serving three years in the US Army in Vicenza, Italy, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome and completed his BA and MFA at UCLA. 

He has received several fellowships, including two Fulbrights to conduct research in Mexico and to teach mural painting in Honduras.
Tito lives and work in Los Angeles, that he calls  "the creative capital of the world and arguably the second largest city in Mexico."
His public art commissions have steadily increased in the past few decades.  Among his public projects are works for the East Los Angeles Civic Center, the LAPD’s North Valley Police Station [seen in the image to the right "Home Heroes"] , the Atlanta International Airport, the Heritage Square Station on MTA’s Gold Line, the Pico-Aliso Housing Projects in Boyle Heights, and the Federal Courthouse in Pocatello, Idaho.
Link to Tito's website >> http://titodelgado.com/Home.htm