The City of Madison announces a Call for Entries for Madison’s 2018 Utility Box Art Program. 

In 2016, the City of Madison’s Art Commission and Downtown Coordinating Committee authorized a pilot test to wrap four City owned utility boxes with artwork. In 2017/2018, over twenty more boxes wrapped. This year, given the positive public reaction to the program, the Madison Arts Commission, decided to continue the program annually and is announcing a call for entries for the next round of boxes.

The Madison Arts Commission intends this program to highlight, encourage and promote local artists by giving them exposure in the public realm. Artists are invited to submit images of their artwork for consideration. Artists will be compensated up to $400 for a license of each image used in the program. Full guidelines are posted on the City website, but here are a few restrictions for artists to consider:

• The images submitted are original art belonging to the applicant and have the ability to be enlarged to over 4’x6’ in size.
• There are no legible logos, words, letters or numbers that could constitute a sign in the right-of-way.
• The design submitted does not promote or advertise for a particular community group, organization, or business.
• Artists must be over 18 years of age and consider themselves to be professional artists.
• Artists must reside in the City of Madison (City employees and members of City Boards, Committees, and Commissions are not eligible to apply) 4 box max per artist.
• Art submitted for consideration should be able to translate well to a utility box wrap, such that parts of the image may be repeated, doubled, flipped, or even removed to accommodate openings, keyholes, protrusions and other general design constraints that come with wrapping a utilitarian traffic utility box that is a working part of the City’s Infrastructure. Do not submit images with large blank or white spaces. Do not submit photographs of places outside of Madison.

Deadline for proposals: August 31, 2018