Have you seen those colorfully painted traffic-control boxes around town? If so, get ready for some more. 

The city announced Monday it is looking for local artists to share their creativity with the community in the form of painted metal boxes as a part of its Traffic Signal Box Art Program. 

“We just want some really high-quality artwork that represents our community,” city spokesperson Monica Williams told InMaricopa Friday. 

The city has not yet decided how many traffic boxes will be installed and will decide based on the quality of submissions. 

“The sketches that people submit should really be representative of what they would be able to paint onto the box,” Williams said. 

Artists will be paid an honorarium of $750 for their work painting their box. This year, all boxes will be painted, and none will be wrapped as they have been in the past. 

The submission deadline is Dec. 2, and winning artists will be notified Dec. 19. All signal boxes are expected to be completed by March 31, 2025. Artists can apply here. 

Highlighting art in town 

Art has been popping up around town since 2021, when 10 painted horse statues were installed as a part of the city’s first arts initiative called Maricopa Wild Horses. In 2022, nine more horse statues were unveiled and eventually installed around town. 

The first two wrapped traffic boxes were also installed in 2022 at the Honeycutt Road intersections with Porter and Plainview Roads.  

Come last summer, local artists like Senita resident Veronika Leshchinskaya and Hidden Valley resident Anisa Burke were commissioned to decorate 11 of the city’s traffic boxes in town, either via a combo of digital art and a wrap, or hand-painting them in the sweltering heat. 

That summer was a busy one, as Casa Grande artist Mauriel “Mory” Morejon was also commissioned to paint a mural on the Maricopa Museum and Visitor Center. He later returned to paint two more landscape murals, one near Maricopa-Casa Grande Highway in April this year, and another at Pacana Park in May. 

The city most recently announced and extended a mural submission for another mural installation at Pacana Park this July.