If you’ve never heard of utility box artwork, read on, ma friend…
Utility boxes are everywhere. Big boxy old green, gray and tan boxes just sitting there like utilitarian lumps. Whoever decided to dress up their utility box with art is a visionary and a utility box hero. I first noticed public utility boxes adorned with murals in California, but once I noticed them there, I noticed them in other places too…
Living in Utah, I started looking for little blips of public art whenever I visited Salt Lake City, and I’ve watched the city come alive with murals, public art installations – and with decorated utility boxes. I decided to sign up for the Utah public art calls and one day I saw a call for art that I knew I could do, even from the southern end of the state where I lived.
Creating a proposal for utility box artwork in the Daybreak Community near Salt Lake City
The Daybreak call for artists paid a small stipend, and I remember that at the time, the beauty of this call was that they planned to use vinyl as the substrate for the art. This meant they would have a professional installation, rather than expecting the artist to brave the elements to get their art on these boxes. And this is what made it possible for a Southern Utah artist to participate without even visiting this end of the state.
I decided I’d make a proposal they would have a hard time refusing. This meant that I created all of the artwork I would use on each side of the box and shared each panel in my proposal. There was risk in creating so much art without knowing if they’d accept it, but if creating art is the biggest risk… well… I’ll take that risky risk.
I painted some small 5″X7″ gouache paintings, and then I scanned and digitized each one. I painted quite a few individual natural elements to show the various Utah landscapes.
I vectorized the artwork, which allowed me to take these separate flower, plant, and mountain elements and build a few complete pictures. Because the artwork was vectorized, I could enlarge it indefinitely without losing quality.
Creating a public art proposal for my utility box artwork
First, I reached out to the Daybreak Public Art contact and introduced myself. I expressed serious interest in the project, explained that this would be my first piece of public art, and basically made a friend. Can I just tell you how valuable it has been in my professional life to make friends of folx? I feel lucky that it’s something that isn’t terribly anxiety inducing for me…
Once I made my friend, I asked her which boxes were available and if she could possibly send me a photo of them. She did have photos of the boxes and sent me those. I then took my artwork and mocked it up on their utility box the best way I could. I ensured all of those stickers were present in the mockup so they could get as accurate of a vision as possible.
If you compare the mockups to the actual artwork on the utility boxes below, you’ll see that I made a few adjustments (most obvious is the clouds and skies) but I still maintained the basic proposal.
I know this is a lot of work just to present a proposal. But I really wanted to break into the world of public art, and honestly most of the opportunities that I knew of were in the Salt Lake area; so being five hours south meant I had to be really strategic and persistent when I found a method that could work for my artwork. I was really thrilled to jump on this opportunity.
Annnnd now… My decorated utility box just living out in the wild.. ✨
Y’all. The proposal paid off. Basically because I had already made all of the artwork and they could get an accurate vision of what I would bring. Oh – and they also must have liked it, yay!
Soooooo, I recently took a visit to my little bit o’ art in the world – here she is! Still vibrant, on the corner of a busy little thoroughfare.
If you look closely you can see some of the same flowers from the images above. A little painstaking to build, but super satisfying in the end…
I hope you enjoyed this little visual stroll through the process of creating artwork for a vinyl display. For a busy (and honestly, a lil arthritic) gal like myself, vinyl is a big win for public art. Utility box artwork was a safe space for me to dip my toes into the world of public art and I am excited for the next opportunity that comes available. ☀️
Other posts you may enjoy:
Community Colors: A Journey Through Salt Lake City Murals Part 1
The Relationship Between Art and Nature – a Visual Desert Journey