Tribute to Margaret Kilgallen, Phoenix, Visitor Guide & Things to Do Nearby

Tribute to Margaret Kilgallen is a mural in Phoenix, Arizona, painted by artist Carrie Marill to honor the San Francisco muralist Margaret Kilgallen. It stands at 925 N 2nd St and links two West Coast art scenes: Kilgallen's hand-lettered, folk-inspired style and Marill's own roots in San Francisco.

The story behind it

Margaret Kilgallen was a San Francisco-based muralist who died in 2001 at only 33, just as her work was gaining wider recognition. Her art drew on printmaking, American folk tradition and letterpress, and blended elements of sign painting and graffiti. She often painted women riding bikes and surfing.

Carrie Marill, who was born in San Francisco herself, made this mural as a tribute to Kilgallen. It also nods to the flower distribution business whose wall it was painted on, and to the bicycle culture that was growing in Phoenix at the time. Marill works in murals, drawings, sculpture and other media, and her paintings explore the conversation between Modern art and craft and folk traditions.

What to look for

• Look at how the mural borrows from sign painting, with bold shapes and lettering-style forms that echo the world Kilgallen worked in.
• Think about Kilgallen's favorite subjects, women on bicycles and surfboards, and see how a tribute to her speaks to a desert city that was embracing cycling.
• Notice the flat, hand-made quality of the artwork, a nod to printmaking and letterpress rather than polished digital imagery.
• Step back and consider the wall itself, since the mural was made for a flower distribution business and responds to its setting.

Tips for your visit

• It is a mural on the outside of a building, so you view it from the street and there is nothing to go inside.
• Ten to fifteen minutes is plenty for the mural itself, longer if you want to photograph it or explore nearby.
• Visit in good daylight, when the colors and the lines of the artwork are easiest to see and photograph.
• Combine it with other street art in the area, since this mural works best as one stop on a longer walk.

See it on a quest

The mural is one stop on The Phoenix Art Heist: Murals, Mystery, and Masterpieces, a self-guided walk built around the city's street art. You reach it on foot as part of a longer route, the app tells you about each place as you arrive, and you solve a puzzle based on what is in front of you. One ticket covers the whole group, and you can start whenever you like, with no guide and no set departure time.