“How do you get these opportunities?” I can’t tell you how many times I was asked this question while painting a utility box recently. Fellow artists and community members alike were all curious on how projects like this come to fruition! While I can answer this question, the answer always varies. This is my fifth utility box project, and the process has been different for every single one!

For my first two utility boxes, I applied to a specific city’s program. There was a dedicated webpage, application and certain rules to follow. I had to submit a design proposal and was assigned a specific location with a timeframe to complete the painting. For my third box, I was hired by a business owner who wanted to refresh the look of a box outside their storefront. My fourth was actually my first residential utility box, and in that case I was contacted directly by the homeowner via my website. Most recently, I worked with the Business Improvement District (BID) of Mission Hills to brighten up a set of three utility boxes in Mission Hills.

If you’re like, what is a BID? Same. I learned quickly that they are “City-designated geographic-based areas where the business owners are assessed annually to fund activities and improvements to promote their individual business districts” (sandiego.gov). Think of an HOA but for business owners in a neighborhood.

Last June, yes, one whole year ago, I submitted an application to paint a utility box as part of a larger Wayfinding Project. Many of the streets in Mission Hills are named after birds, so the idea was to have artists paint birds on the boxes of corresponding streets like dove, hawk, goldfinch, etc. I submitted a design for Hawk St, along with examples of past mural projects, a description of my approach, list of my materials, a timeline, a cost breakdown, resume, and portfolio/social links.

After some back and forth editing the design and getting into the final round of artists, they lost funding for the entire project! People switched roles and what was once promised as a budget for this project was no longer available. This was a huge blow! Not just for me but for everyone who had worked on getting permission to paint on all the boxes and putting the proposal together.

Months later, the BID reached back out to me and wanted to find a way to bring this project back to life. We talked about collaborating on one box design with the hopes that the impact of the painting and exposure from the project would bring in private donors to fund additional boxes. Because of that, we moved my hypothetical utility box design from Hawk to Goldfinch St, which is a higher trafficked area. That means more eyes on my box! They still liked my original design, so I decided to alter it slightly to make sense for Goldfinches. In my original Hawk mockup, I include elements of a hawks environment including lizards, bugs, and California poppy flowers. Since Goldfinches mostly eat seeds, I decided to include sunflowers, thistles, dandelions and small leaves.

This new location on Goldfinch St includes three small boxes close together. After visiting the site in person, I took photos and edited my mockup accordingly. I sent this to the BID and we set a date to start painting!

And THAT’S how I got this opportunity. It’s been a literal year in the making!

Friday
Jump forward to the painting weekend, I showed up on Friday after my 9-5 to clean and prime the boxes. I always wear gloves during this part because utility boxes are super dirty! This was my first time using Mural Wash* and while it did clean the boxes well, I’m not sure it did much better than Dawn dish soap. I would have to use them side-by-side to tell the difference! After scrubbing and wiping the boxes dry, I picked up an angled 2” brush and got to work priming the edges, corners, and difficult to reach spots. Two coats of Mural Primer* later and these boxes were ready for artwork! I cleaned up my workspace and ended the day with some delicious veggie tacos and a margherita from La Puerta.

*I am not sponsored by Mural Colors, but if someone from the company is reading this blog, let’s talk!!

Saturday
I arrived around 8am to lay down some paper and tape over any remaining signage. I had two local artists arriving at 9am to help me paint all day and so I started by sketching my main background shapes with chalk. In order to help all of us work in harmony, I created several mockups and color guides for us to reference throughout the day. Emily and Ulises were a HUGE help and I definitely would not have been able to complete this project in one weekend without them! Be sure to check out their artwork and follow their creative journeys.

Back to the boxes! Once the sage green color was covering most of the box, I let Emily and Ulises clean up the edges while I sketched in the goldfinches. I freehanded this because all of the shapes were organic and I didn’t have time to be precious with my layout. The placement of the birds was also affected by the hinges on the box itself, so once the birds were blocked in, I filled in the rest of the sides with flowers and shapes. Around 11am, I began painting the birds and I bet you can’t guess the color I’m using… that’s right, it’s Yellow Bird by Sherman Williams. Someone at that company knows what they’re doing because I also needed a color for my thistles and I found a beautiful purple called Thistle. 10/10, no notes!

Around noon we took a short break to eat some delicious pizza and then my parents stopped by to give me words of encouragement and buy me some coffee from Meshuggah Shack. After refueling, we started back up and continued painting until about 3:30pm. I had a hard stop at 4pm because I needed to go home and get ready for a family event, but I crashed a little earlier and had everything packed up by 3:45pm. Even with ending earlier than I’d expected, I still think we made an incredible amount of progress! Rain was also threatening to fall all day long and although we did get several droplets and saw literal lightning strikes, we never had to stop painting.

Birds of Mission Hills Wayfinding Art Box Project

Sunday
Of all the weekends to paint, we of course chose the one where the Rock n Roll Marathon was happening. This race comes to San Diego every year and because of it, many streets in Downtown San Diego were closed for a good portion of the day. Thankfully, runners passed through Mission Hills early and the streets were clear by 11am. I started to set up all my supplies and made some additional sketches onto each box. Earlier that morning, I’d looked at photos of the box with fresh eyes and made notes of what I wanted to change. This included extending some vines and branches over the corners of the box and adding in more purple. Just as I was finishing this up, Emily and Ulises arrived for day 2 and I gave them a rundown of the changes. Just like the day before, they both picked up their brushes and immediately got to work!

My focus for the day was painting the birds. I began adding in the dark grey colors to the birds’ wings and then added other colors like light yellow and white to add texture and depth. Around 3pm is when I began on the last step: linework! For this design, I decided to leave the flowers and shapes as-is and only outline the birds to make them pop. Emily and Ulises finished cleaning up all the background elements and I sent them home around 4pm. I then set to work finishing up the outlines and added my signature to the bottom corner of box on the right. At 6pm, I decided it was finished! My parents stopped by after the Padres game, helped me pack up all my supplies, and threw away the paper tarp I’d laid down to protect the sidewalk from any paint drips.

My client stayed at the painting site all weekend, so I knew immediately that they were happy with the results! Even though my body hurt from hours of crouching and bending, I was very proud of what we had done. I snapped a few photos and video clips to post and went home to sleep!

Monday
After work, I went back to the boxes to varnish them with Overcoat. This is a varnish created by mural artists that “can be used on its own to protect painted surfaces from unwanted buff paint, spray paint, permanent markers, and more.” It also protects the artwork from fading in the sun. Using a brush and roller, I applied two coats of this to the boxes and finished the project by adding a QR sticker to the corner of one of the boxes. This will eventually lead to a webpage describing the entire Birds of Mission Hills Wayfinding Project. The hope is that in a couple of years, there will be painted boxes throughout the neighborhood so that people can walk through the community and follow a map of bird boxes. Along the way they can learn about the birds, walk through cute neighborhoods, and enjoy Mission Hills!

I have always wanted to see a program like this in Vista, so I’m honored to start a project like this in Mission Hills! I’m looking forward to continuing this partnership with the Mission Hills BID and hope these Goldfinches bring the community joy for many years to come. If you’d like to view these boxes in-person, they’re at the corner of Goldfinch St and Fort Stockton Dr, right next to Meshuggah Shack!

additional photos from the Goldfinch boxes:

If you’d like to paint a utility box in your neighborhood, please check out my blog How to Paint a Utility Box and download my free Mural Supply List and Best Practices Guide. Happy Painting!

Turning Utility Boxes into Art in Mission Hills, San Diego

additional photos from the Goldfinch boxes:

A Muralist’s Guide to Image Transfer