I spy, with my little eye, new art in Baytown! Have you noticed the traffic cabinets at some intersections in Baytown have been transformed into beautiful works of art? This is the new Mini Mural project that is part of the Public Art Program here in Baytown!
These eye catching Mini Murals are vinyl wraps attached to traffic cabinets. What's a traffic cabinet? I'm glad you asked! A traffic cabinet is the silver box at intersections that you've probably never even noticed before! These drab boxes are used to control the traffic signal and are prone to getting tagged with graffiti. While some cities have their mini murals painted, Baytown opted to take the art from local artists and transform them into vinyl wraps! As we all know, there's no way to escape the Texas sun, so we did a lot of research to find the best way to keep these art pieces from fading. Vinyl wraps was the best option!
Art comes in all kinds of diverse shapes and sizes! With the first five mini murals, we wanted to see how different art mediums would look printed on vinyl. Anchor Printing and Graphics was excited to be a part of our new project and was so wonderful to work with. As the first few Mini Murals went up, we realized that the installation of these art pieces is truly amazing! Here are a few behind the scenes photos to give you an idea of what goes into putting these works of art up around town.
All of the mediums we tried out looked amazing on vinyl! The buzz on social media was impressive, and a lot of people asked “how can we submit our art?” So we opened a call for artists this past spring and received several submissions. Because of the popularity of this project, we were able to do more Mini Murals than we intended!! Through the call for artists, fourteen more Mini Murals were chosen by the Public Art Visioning Committee. That brings our grand total of Mini Murals to nineteen!
The question still gets asked "how can we submit our art?" Glad you asked! The answer is: our Baytown Photo Contest! Our Baytown Photo Contest is currently open, and one of the prizes includes a photo becoming a Mini Mural here in Baytown!! Free and open to the public, this contest is an opportunity for locals and visitors to showcase their photographs taken in Baytown. Whether it’s a photo in the Umbrella Alley, at the Baytown Nature Center, or out on the water catching some monster fish, we want to see all of the attractions, places and things that make Baytown so great. To read more about the photo contest, click here!
Take a second and scroll through the latest Mini Murals!