Following the lead of other Bay Area cities including Walnut Creek, Concord, San Jose, Pleasanton and Dublin, the Martinez City Council approved a pilot program to make four utilitarian utility cabinets into public art pieces.
The Council voted 5-0 to approve designs for city-owned cabinets off Marina Vista Avenue downtown near the Contra Costa Community College District building; at Alhambra Avenue at F Street, near Safeway; at Alhambra and K Street; and at the south end of the city, at Alhambra at Paso Nogal Road, near the Virginia Hills Shopping Center.
The council’s approval also included pursuing agreements with four artists — one for each box — to do the artwork, based on designs they had submitted for selection to take part in the program.
All four cabinets are city-owned; PG&E didn’t want any of its boxes used, because they want their boxes uniform in appearance to make identifying them easier for crews doing repairs and maintenance.
The artists won’t paint directly onto the cabinets; their work will be transferred onto “vinyl wraps” similar to those used for advertising on the sides of buses or BART cars.
The pilot project is anticipated to cost about $10,000, with funding already allocated.
10 comments
Oh that’s nice, I like those little art works.
I have seen these out in Antioch…kind of neat. Not so boring.
Perfect, When so many other things could use the $$$$$$.
$10,000 to vinyl wrap four boxes. With a little more
creativity and fiscal responsibility the city could have
had an art contest for local students.The kids would
have been proud to display their talents.
I agree. Maybe eliminate a lot of graffiti that goes on otherwise and award the good young artists!
That’s what the city did. The contest was open to all ages, from artists everywhere. The winners were from nearby. 2 of the 4 will be really great. The other 2 are moderately good.
Each box is $750.00 for the artist…
and the artist better be diverse and nonbinary and the art better not be historic, remember we must not discriminate
That is a very normal price. I can assure you that $10k is very fair for the scope of this project. A mid to high end custom wrap on a car can break $4k easily.
These are not cars, they are square boxes. Hopefully the moneys will be split between the artists AND the wrap company. 10k split 5 ways… not terrible.
The artist will receive $750.00.for each box.
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