NOVEMBER 2007 ONLINE EDITORIALS
Art Trek: Street Art and Utilities Do Mix
By Maggie Kunze
These are the voyages of the Starship Magnolia T Blossom, aka Artaprise
Its incredible mission:
To explore strange new art worlds
To seek out new artists and new canvases
To boldly go where no art lover has gone before
Dedicated to the great William Shatner – may we all “Shatnerize” ourselves. My definition of “Shaternize”: to transform ourselves, retrain our limited thinking and become resilient. We can adjust, rethink and perhaps get a little “Denny Crane” in our core to help us think outside the norm and live life to the fullest.
This month I want to introduce you to a brave group of artists that have taken their art out of their studio and hit the street! Literally! These artists are spiffing up a pretty mundane part of Fort Collins that you might not even notice unless you stumbled down an alley: transformer boxes that house electric cords and gizmos. They are usually covered in graffiti and other human deposits that we don’t really want to think about. Two forward thinking city employees, Kraig Bader and Wayne Sterler who work for the utility department, were commenting about the amount of money and man-hours involved in cleaning, repainting and overall maintenance of these boxes. Kraig had read of studies of cities where artists put up murals or paintings on known problem graffiti sites and found a mutual respect among artists so that those sites did not get vandalized. Noting that the city already had an “Art in Public Places” program, they went to Ellen Martin the city’s visual arts administrator and coordinator of the Art in Public Places program, who supported the idea.
The city put out an open call to artists that went through the regular city bid process and determined the sites. The first site was Tenney Alley, which just gone through a major renovation. It is east of Enzio’s and goes back to the city’s parking garage. Amelia Caruso painted five transformer boxes there in her famous ‘dot’ style. They are so amazing. Her ability to paint dots in such uniformity with such color PUNCH is absolute perfection!! Amelia spent weeks painting the boxes and found it to be a wonderful if not memorable and aromatic experience. She would find people sleeping behind the boxes, and bar patrons would leave unwelcome gifts in the nooks and crannies. Store and restaurant owners and workers brought her coffee and loved watching the ongoing process. Most passersby were very supportive and thought the idea was a great gift to the community. Kraig and Wayne were pleased that a problem area, one that had to be cleaned on a weekly basis, was now a highlight that people were going out of their way to see.
Other artists who have painted transformer boxes all found the experience worthwhile. Lisa Cameron painted the box behind Ace Hardware and likened it to performance art. Because you are basically ‘on stage’ the whole time, you have a chance to really get instant feedback and interact with so many people. Lisa found that a ton of graffiti artists came and talked to her and wanted to know how they could get involved. I thought maybe graffiti artists might be a bit pissed that these artists were getting paid to do what they do all the time. But Lisa found a big distinction between taggers and graffiti artists. The artists she talked to were interested in graffiti as an art form – not the same problem the city was seeing, which is much more gang tagging related.
Diane Findley is a wonderfully talented local artist who had a blast painting her transformer on the east side of Walrus Ice Cream. The whole experience for her was one that she wanted to prolong and savor – Diane loves the stage. Her transformer is a glorious riot of color: inspired by chili peppers roasting in a fire pit over an upside down sky of gorgeous blue swirls come together in this wonderful abstract landscape.
Next year’s planning has already begun with the goal to expand this program to include community members, student art groups and more artists. I think it is a fabulous way to incorporate art into our everyday surroundings. What a win-win situation to find resources that take care of maintenance dollars that were just going to the industrial mechanics and turning these utilitarian objects into wonderful works of art. Now that is what I call ‘Painting outside the box!’