On a recent Friday afternoon in Pineville Lake Park, it would be difficult to imagine a more tranquil scene. Men sailed red boats on a small lake. A hungry heron glided in for a landing. Four artists painted nature scenes on utility boxes.
To make the park even prettier, the Pineville Parks and Recreation Department commissioned four university student artists to repaint five large electrical utility boxes near the lake. These newly muralised boxes make their public debut on Saturday, May 18, at Pineville Arts in the Park.
“As a municipality, we’re thinking about how we can make anything look better, make it look pretty,” said Matthew Jakubowski, director of parks and recreation. “Instead of looking at that electrical box, you’re looking at a beautiful piece of art done by a wonderful artist.”
The boxes are part of a larger Pineville beautification plan to incorporate murals in several parts of the city, including downtown and an athletic park.
Mike Wirth, a muralist and art professor at Queens University of Charlotte, led the students on the project. He said wrapping art around utility boxes is an extension of the murals that became so popular in the last decade.
“I definitely see cities and towns and municipalities looking to this work and seeing the value in it, whereas previously they did not,” Wirth said. “Anybody spray painting was to be arrested within minutes, because they were most likely doing graffiti or some sort of vandalism. But now that they see that murals beautify and attract people to spaces, they understand that that’s part of the experience.”
“Murals on walls are a little bit of a different animal, just because sometimes you’re talking about large scale,” Wirth said. “With these, you’re thinking now in three dimensions, right? Instead of just a big tableau surface, you’ve got to design around the corner and then ultimately around all four sides and maybe even the top of the box.”
During the pandemic, Baltimore became famous for the way artists customized salt boxes that distribute grit used for snow removal. Other city utility box programs include Milwaukee; Los Angeles; and Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
When Jakubowski began to explore the market for muralists to paint utility boxes, he got estimates that extended into tens of thousands of dollars. He and the town manager landed on the idea of collaborating with a local university, framing the project as a way to develop the planning, conceptual, and client-relationship skills of graphic design students, at $500 per box.
Wirth jumped at the idea, and four students — Ana Garay, Rebecca Leaper, Allison Morton and Sophie Romine — delivered design proposals for review by town officials. After approval, they spent a day painting the boxes.
“I like the process of getting dirty with the spray paint and kind of just experimenting because not everything is going to go according to your design,” Garay said — designs can make spaces more inviting and warm to be around. “You don’t want everything to look industrial and cold and manufactured. Families just want to feel that they’re not constantly surrounded by machines, and it’s supposed to be the most natural place you can come in the city.”
Jakubowski described Arts in the Park as an ideal debut for the boxes, because the event is all about paintings, sculpture, ceramics, textiles, jewelry and music from local artists.
“It absolutely helps bring people together, because art always does.”
Nico Gomez is a student at Queens University of Charlotte, which provides the news service in support of local community news.