Best Mural

READERS' PICK: When the idea for a mural on Stone and Limberlost was conceived, Tucson's people and policy-makers had all but consumed both the Rillito, which once flowed north of there, and the Limberlost neighborhood itself, which was bulldozed and walled in half to accommodate traffic between Tucson Mall and downtown. So what has come of that concept is nothing less than miraculous. That divisive wall, six feet high and 600 feet long, became a floodgate for the remaining Limberlost residents to reclaim a sense of determination and form the Limberlost Neighborhood Association. And that assembly, coupled with the stunning insight of a group of artists, many of them high-school students, has restored with all its soulfulness the Rillito. In the mural, the Rillito's current carries life from the delicate shell of an egg through youthful harmony with nature, to the hopefulness of agrarian enterprise, on to the creaky machinery of the train and then into a quickened full cityscape. The landscape throughout is gorgeous, the eyes of every creature convey peaceful awareness, and the swift passage of it all drips so heavily with promise that the return to harmony at the end is no surprise, so pervasive was its pull the whole time. Stop. Get out of your car, run your eyes along the tilework and feel how your own paltry movements are a minute part of something that is carrying us all. The mural, referred to simply as "The Wall," is still undergoing transformation.