Decatur Is Making You Look Twice

The City of Decatur, and for that matter all of Atlanta, has always had a great fondness for its artists. Street art. Fine art. Arts festivals. Music. Film. You name it. In its effort to encourage talented citizens and foster a community of collaboration and beautification through individual expression, Atlanta has exploded with color. There is an itch here among artists to paint the whole city, to cover every surface in character and to showcase the raw talent which seems to run rampant down Krog St. Although much of this beautification has been done with questionable legality, developers and government officials have caught onto the huge potential for outreach and citizen involvement through street art. Instead of discouraging the practice altogether, public officials have turned graffiti on itself, encouraging ATL-ian artists in their crafts with more law-friendly options. Open calls for submissions ask for ways to keep fresh concrete and newly stacked brick walls from remaining colorless for long — and maybe even to unite the local community.

The Beltline project is a perfect example. Proponents claim that the program not only stimulates economic development in the area, but also “breaks down economic and cultural barriers.” These efforts bring together rich and poor, sculptors and graffitists, photographers and musicians, citizens and government. They encourage us to see beauty all around us — not just on concrete walls or mile markers coated in acrylics, but in our neighbor who painted them for us.

In this same vein, the City of Decatur recently launched a project that that challenges local makers to beautify the mundane: the traffic signal box.

Don’t even know what that is? Yeah, that’s the point. But get a load of Decatur’s; you will never un-see these otherwise invisible boxes.

Initiated by Larry Holland and backed by the Decatur Arts Alliance, the Decatur Downtown Development Authority and a handful of local businesses, the Decatur Box Project received donations from the community sufficient to paint 15 boxes by July 2016.

There is an undeniable parallel being drawn here. What are these artists doing with all of this? They make us look at something we once walked right by. They make it beautiful, give it a chance. But they are illuminating more than just their city’s infrastructure. Ever thought about the man sitting against the wall on your walk to work as a talented artist? Maybe he painted that mural you stopped to look at this morning, but maybe you didn’t stop to talk to or look at him. By forcing us to look at a metal box, to look at his work, he forces us to look at him. There is a fire that is spreading in Atlanta, a culture on the rise. A culture of lifting up the under-appreciated and the overlooked, giving them a chance. It’s altogether wonderful and inciting, and it’s happening on an electrical box near you.

Artists tag themselves using their Instagram handles, so if you like what you see here, check out their work online.

Take some time on your lunch break today to check out the beautiful work your neighbors are cranking out all around Decatur!