Art for fresh start’s sake
In March 2006, seven months after Hurricane Katrina, Jeannie and Craig Tidy returned to New Orleans and helped their daughter rebuild what was left of her flood-ravaged home. In the wake of Katrina, the city’s population had dropped by nearly 60 percent. There were more than 100 destroyed properties just within a four-block radius of their daughter’s house.
The Tidys did basic things like remove debris, make minor repairs, and create replacement street signs so contractors could find their way to work sites. But Jeannie’s personal vision of rebuilding the city revolved around implementing a project created by Candace Lopez in San Diego, where the Tidys had relocated during the aftermath of the hurricane. In the sketchy East Village section of San Diego, unsightly gray electrical boxes could be found on practically every corner. Lopez had the idea to establish the Urban Art Trail, which involved enlisting art students to cover the traffic-signal boxes in colorful paintings, turning something unseemly and ugly into something beautiful and inspiring.
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Address At the intersection of Esplanade and Carrollton Avenues and at numerous locations throughout the city; for a list of the painted utility boxes, visit www.cvunola.org | Tip If you see a brightly colored statue made up of round balls that somewhat resembles a dog, that’s a leftover from a benefit program to raise money for the Louisiana SPCA. The dog sculptures mimicked a well-known design kids would make from Mardi Gras beads. The statues were placed all over the city and Metairie and auctioned off.
For New Orleans, Jeannie approached City Hall for the go-ahead. She was fortunate to belly up to the window of an unusually wise and generous employee who told her, “You’ll never get approval in writing. But as long as the neighborhood doesn’t disapprove, we won’t bother you.” Jeannie named the project the New Orleans Street Gallery. Artists submit an entry design for painting a utility box and, if accepted, they receive a small stipend of $250 to create the art.
The Street Gallery has since spread far beyond the initial Lakeview neighborhood into Mid-City, Carrollton, and other areas of New Orleans. So far, roughly 70 of the city’s 400 utility boxes have been painted in a great variety of styles. You simply need to keep an eye out at intersections throughout the city to spot the four-sided murals.
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