RISD x The Avenue Concept

The electrical box that sits between Waterman and Main Street was designed by myself, Teréz Villeda-Medina, and my co-lead Shona O’Bryant. This box is unique when it comes to location placement. Since the box sits on a main road, pedestrians, bikers, buses and cars have a front seat to the show. Keeping this in mind, Shona and I were able to merge ideas when it came to the design process. Shona had voiced how important looking out for oneself is when it comes to an everyday lifestyle. We both agreed that the design and quote we chose should merge both our unique styles. My style lands more towards urban street art that utilizes vibrant colors whereas Shona had a more of Pinterest, diffused color pallet and typography concentered design.

We were able to find a middle ground with our design and chose a quote by Civil Rights activist, feminist and writer Audre Lorde. Quote “Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation. And that is an act of political warfare.” This quote is extremely prevalent in the society we live in and discusses the importance of taking care of you.

Myself & Michelle Collado

When it came to physically working on the box, I assigned different roles to my classmates to help with the base of the box. Communication was key with this box, and we had to make sure that we were working efficiently. Once the base coat and stenciling were complete, I went back in, and hand outlined each letter. As I got closer to the completion of the box, some free-hand lettering came in handy as well as help from two of my peers to assist in finishing off some outlining. This process of group and independent work put emphasis on the importance of well-needed collaboration as well as thinking on your toes.

It was such a pleasure to work in collaboration with my classmates and The Avenue Concept. Jess Brown facilitated the collaboration with The Avenue. We were given some basic training skills. The artists from the Avenue [provided us basic training skills ad were available to assist with any new techniques we wanted to apply to our boxes. The Avenue’s expertise and energy made this an extremely exciting project to work on. I found it to be very important/enlightening to work with our surrounding communities to bring artistic diversity forward.