Painting a Traffic Signal Box (TSB) in Brisbane for AOP

Artforce is an initiative of Brisbane City Council and managed by Queensland Urban Ecology (QUE).

Artforce is a public art project designed to reduce graffiti, encourage residents to show pride in their local community and add colour to the city of Brisbane.

The TSB dimensions are 140cm high x 80cm wide x 42cm deep, with up to 4 sides available to paint.

During early 2005, I telephoned Helen Vere with the idea of painting a box and she jumped at the chance...

Helen has previously donated two of her paintings to AOP to help raise funds to support projects in Borneo and Sumatra and keep orangutans from extinction.

On Friday the 5th May, at 8.30 Helen and I arrived at TSB -B0072 on the corners of George and Turbot Street, Brisbane with our Artforce pack in tow to a drab looking box covered in posters front and back.

After scrubbing at the posters with water and scotch brite for an hour, we were now ready for the undercoat and a clean skin to work with.

With day time temperatures reaching 28 degrees, and drying out the paint we managed to have the undercoat, two top coats of blue and the basic portraits of the orangutans and trees finished by 4.30.

We were pleased with our efforts and both looking forward to finishing the box the following day.


The positive feedback on the concept of painting these boxes amongst locals, travellers and tourists visiting Brisbane was great.

Friday by-passers came back the following day to see the finished result and take photos and support what we were doing.

Travellers who had travelled to Borneo asked more questions and of course were given an AOP brochure.

These photos were taken by a keen photographer who stood round clicking away from all angles.

By 12.00 on Saturday it was finished. It was a wonderful sense of achievement sitting back on the grass looking at the final piece of art with four orangutan faces staring at you from all angles.

As you can see from the final photos, Helen’s impressive artwork designs are fantastic, focusing on the sad plight of our orangutan cousins. Let’s hope it becomes a focal point in Brisbane and achieve the awareness we want.

I would personally like to thank Helen for her continuing donation of ideas, time and art – we had fun, and Iook forward to working together in the future.

I will be presenting QUE photos of our box for the Yearly Artforce competition held in November.

Keep your fingers crossed…..

Regards,
Marion marion@orangutan.org.au
National Coordinator/QLD Representative