The Utility Box Art Project - Desert Hot Springs edition 

I saw this spectacular Utility Box Art just off of Palm Drive and Dillon Road in Desert Hot Springs.  As an artist who has made a Utility Box Art project themselves (in Little Tokyo in Downtown Los Angeles), I must admit that the most energized and also least graffittied utility box projects I've seen have all been ones that were painted directly onto the utility box. One weekend, it seemed that boxes all over South Pasadena were being painted the same day by different artists, and it was encouraging to see people stopping by to talk with the artists, and drivers smiling on to see artists in their community at work. As wonderful as some of the non-painted, vinyl decal covered utility box projects have been, they tend to look like ads and get graffitied up pronto. In its early stages the graffitti on my own utility box was welcomed, but once the flood gates were opened, it just looked trashed. The painted boxes, however, seem to stay either completely untouched, or for the most part, minimally tagged. In my opinion the Utility Box Art Project is a worthy civic project, but definitely better suited for painted projects rather than vinyl decals.