{"id":246537,"date":"2013-09-27T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-09-27T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/its-a-wrap\/"},"modified":"2013-09-27T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2013-09-27T07:00:00","slug":"its-a-wrap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/its-a-wrap\/","title":{"rendered":"It\u2019s a wrap"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rainbow-colored fruits and veggies pop up around Hillcrest<\/p>\n

Por Morgan M. Hurley | Asistente de edici\u00f3n SDUN<\/p>\n

Residents and visitors of Hillcrest may have noticed an artful addition to the neighborhood recently, thanks to a new project launched by the Hillcrest Business Association (HBA).<\/p>\n

Deemed the \u201cUtility Box Art Project,\u201d it started with acquiring colorful, high-resolution digital photography of fruits and vegetables, printing those images out on 64-by-58-inch, all-weather material and wrapping the final product around a series of high-profile, traffic-signal control boxes.<\/p>\n

\"John<\/a>
John Thurston in front of his completed \u201czucchini\u201d wrap at Normal Street and University Avenue, in honor of the Hillcrest Farmers\u2019 Market (Photo by Morgan M. Hurley)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The idea came after HBA Executive Director Benjamin Nicholls saw an electrical box in Point Loma outfitted in a similar fashion.<\/p>\n

John Thurston, a third-generation Hillcrest native who currently lives in City Heights, is a local photographer who joined the HBA beautification committee at the first of the year. Once Nicholls floated the idea of beautifying area utility boxes to the committee, Thurston said he saw an opportunity to make a difference with his art and formulated a pitch for the project, offering his services at just $1 per box.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a gay man growing up in San Diego where do you hang out?\u201d Thurston said. \u201cThis was the center of the universe. I\u2019m kinda thrilled to, not really leave my mark, but my contribution.\u201d<\/p>\n

A retired aerospace technical editor, Thurston grew up with a journalist father and was always tinkering with cameras, but he said it was the digital age of photography that finally bit him for good. After taking photography classes from South Bark Dog Wash co-owner Lisa Vela at City College, Thurston now runs a thriving business and even teaches classes of his own.<\/p>\n

Thurston\u2019s work did come with a hitch; all boxes had to have his web address \u2013 jthurstonphoto.com\u00a0<\/a>\u2013 identified on one side, and the final contract included HBA\u2019s website as well.<\/p>\n

Prior to submitting his proposal to the HBA, Thurston said he set out with his phone to do a layman\u2019s survey \u2013 though quite sophisticated thanks to today\u2019s applications \u2013 of all the electrical-type utility boxes within the HBA footprint.<\/p>\n

Once all the boxes \u2013 which included various sizes from San Diego Gas & Electric, the City, Cox Communications and AT&T \u2013 were photographed and geo-tagged, Thurston recommended starting with the 10 traffic-signal boxes as they were tall, uniform in nature and present at every major intersection.<\/p>\n

The project was quickly approved, and soon Impact Visual Arts (IVA) in Mission Valley and Howard Sign Services in El Cajon, Calif. were brought on board as part of the implementation team, with Thurston assigned as the project lead.<\/p>\n

After fruits and vegetable images were decided upon to promote the Hillcrest Farmers\u2019 Market, Thurston said the HBA board suggested he attempt \u201ca rainbow motif\u201d when considering his subjects. Although each color is represented, he said laying them out that way was \u201ca little tricky.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"(l<\/a>
(l to r) Howard Mittleman (kneeling) and Mike Bancroft of Howard Sign Services finish \u201cstrawberry\u201d on University Avenue. (Photo by John Thurston Photography)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What also was not easy, he said, was preparing the utility boxes for IVA\u2019s polyester\/natural fiber, eco-friendly UV coating. Each stainless steel box takes up to four hours of preparation prior to the installation.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt became the biggest expense,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s gotta be smooth as a baby\u2019s bottom to get it right, and Howard [Sign Services] has really gotten it down to a science.\u201d<\/p>\n

Deciding the location of some of the specific fruit and veggie images also took on meaning. The first installation, at the corner of Sixth and Robinson avenues on June 27 was a photo of kiwi fruit, a nod to Nicholls, who hails fro<\/p>\n

Seven more \u201cwraps\u201d have been installed along University Avenue: zucchinis at the corner of Normal Street, habanero chilies at Richmond Street, strawberries at Vermont Street, heirloom tomatoes at 10th Avenue, Thai peppers in front of the Hillcrest Fire Station at Ninth Avenue, blueberries at Fifth Avenue and cherries at Third Avenue.<\/p>\n

A red leaf lettuce image has been installed at the corner of Washington and Normal streets, and the 10th and final installation, eggplant, will take place at Washington Street and Fourth Avenue.<\/p>\n

IVA\u2019s material won\u2019t fade, is \u201ctagging\u201d resistant, and should last for up to 10 years, Thurston said.<\/p>\n

For consistency, the HBA will vote in November regarding how to wrap the remaining 14 utility boxes with native plant images, and Thurston said he expects to get compensated for that phase.<\/p>\n

With this project now under his belt, Thurston plans to approach other neighborhoods with the idea, since many are undergrounding their electrical lines, a process that creates utility boxes in its wake.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rainbow-colored fruits and veggies pop up around Hillcrest By Morgan M. Hurley | SDUN Assistant Editor Residents and visitors of Hillcrest may have noticed an artful addition to the neighborhood recently, thanks to a new project launched by the Hillcrest Business Association (HBA).<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":246538,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"It\u2019s a wrap","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11547,11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}