Two dozen utility boxes across Hermosa Beach will receive an artist’s touch following a recent agreement between a local nonprofit and the city. Hermosa Beach artist Josh Barnes began paiting the first utility box last week in the parking lot behind The Lighthouse Cafe, on 11th Street. The design for that utility box features a shark swimming in blue-and-green ocean waters, with the sun setting into the sea.
On Thursday, May 30, Barnes was puting the finishing touches on the initial utility-box mural. He had put around 20 hours into create the work, using mostly spray paint, Barnes said. Barnes is also doing the finishing touches on refurbishing the Hermosa Beach Skate Park sign, which will celebrates its 25th anniversary on June 8, during which the sign will be unveiled.
“I just try to get some motion going,” Barnes said, something “that will pop out when you see it.” The “Hermosa Means Beautiful” project is a collaboration between the city and Indivisible Arts, a nonprofit that “cultivates creativity, consciousness and connection through art,” according to its website. Barnes “has kicked off the partnership in a beautiful way with his mural that repurposes the old skate park sign and his utility box art down by the pier,” Indivisible Arts founder Rafael McMaster said this week.
McMaster is the one who found the artists for the project. Indivisible Arts will pay the artists for their work. Barnes, who has lived in the South Bay for 10 years, said he fir.
