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Thursday, July 5, 2012

Congratulations on having two of your artworks chosen for the Neighborhood of the Arts traffic utility boxes!

Well tickle me pink!

There was a completion to decorate two TV Cable and two Traffic Control Boxes early this year and I made my submissions and got two jobs awarded.


To do the submissions I went out to the sites and took pictures of the boxes and then came home and using Photoshop, created and wrapped the designs around the images of the boxes. 

Lots of learning, frustrations but it all worked out and I can now do things in Photoshop that I could not do before. Thanks to all the folks on Youtube that post Photoshop tutorials.

Here are the pics that submitted. 


TV cable box seen from the road


Traffic Control Box seen from the road

Dealing with all groups involved with getting permission and engineers was quite involved. The forms and list of materials and rules of how to create the work was also very interesting. I spent more time helping do the applications and dealing with questions than I did doing the work. 

I have a new appreciation for those artists that do public work. EVERYONE has to have input. Amazing.

So I started painting the TV cable box first and I spent a couple of hours just cleaning the box and getting all the stickers and grunge off.

Then the painting started.


Then as I got going a photographer for the local paper stopped by and the next thing we know, Colleen and I are in the paper. 


Once an eyesore, a few utility boxes along University Avenue will undergo an extreme makeover.
Three utility boxes along the 1000 block of the street will soon become public art, part of a project by the Neighborhood of the Arts Business Association.
Two local artists have been commissioned by the business association to paint three utility boxes with their own designs. They were chosen after an open call for artists, said Priscilla Auchincloss, president of the assocation.
“It’s an absolutely fantastic idea. Most people are stuck with the utility boxes, and they can get dirty or tagged,” said Doug Steward, one of the artists and responsible for two utility boxes. “They’ll become something to look at when you’re at a stoplight.” Working outside earlier this week when temperatures were in the mid-90s, Steward had to stop earlier than planned because the heat was drying the paint on his palette.
Colleen Virdi is responsible for painting the third utility box. Her design is of silent film actress Mary Louise Brooks, who once lived in a small Goodman Street apartment off University Avenue and is buried in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery.
Artists were given a $400 stipend for each utility box in addition to $125 for supplies, Steward said. Both artists hope to have their utility boxes painted by the end of June. The project was inspired by other neighborhoods in Rochester, Auchincloss said. Other neighborhoods have also painted bus stops.
“The idea is to create interest and appeal from people driving by,” Auchincloss said. “What the city wants, and what we want, is for the public to feel curious and welcome so they will come and explore these neighborhoods.”



I finished the TV cable box and it looks a lot like the image I created with Photoshop.


Then I moved on to the traffic control box and started to paint. Hotter than blazes out there.

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