A utility box on Church Street painted over in August by local artist Li Wen Chen for the Bell Boxes Mural Project.

Aaron Hutchins

The hidden gems of Toronto’s art scene sit right there in plain view. The rusty Bell utility boxes, often tagged with graffiti, are in the midst of a citywide facelift. No advertising. No self-promotion. Just art for art’s sake — and Ryerson has three such masterpieces on campus.  

Working with the Yellow Door Learning Centre, a community development house at 6 St. Joseph St., Michael Cavanaugh has been involved with the Bell Boxes Mural Project since its inception four years ago. The former art teacher at Lakehead University finds talented locals and commissions them to paint murals over the vandalized eyesores. He’s even managed to paint a few boxes of his own, including a winter wonderland scene near Rosedale subway station. 

He said that despite the art’s beauty and its locations across the city, the campaign has yet to receive much recognition. “You’ve got an outdoor promotion piece of your work in downtown Toronto and nobody has noticed it yet.”

The project started in 2009, when eight Bell boxes got a fresh coat of paint, followed by another eight the next year. Since 2011, an additional 32 Bell boxes have been painted – making 48 masterpieces in all. This summer, the project introduced a theme for the first time: historical Toronto.

While the majority of the boxes in the Church-Wellesley neighbourhood have been painted, the mural project expanded into east Danforth this summer. Cavanaugh has also received phone calls from St. Jamestown neighbourhood associations in hopes that the project can expand to that area next year. 

He knows there’s no worry about a shortage of boxes to paint. “I said to Bell: ‘Do you realize you are probably the owners of the largest outdoor art gallery in Canada?’” Cavanaugh said. “This is like de’ Medici. These are now cultural assets.”

The communications giant couldn’t be happier with the public-private partnership. Instead of having to constantly repaint the boxes to cover over graffiti, the Bell boxes receive significantly less vandalism with the non-commercial artwork now on display. And, in the rare occurrence that any artist’s piece is defaced, a clear protective layer is placed over the original artwork. 

That’s not to say that anyone can paint any box as they wish. Artists must show their proposed project to Cavanaugh, who passes the submission along to a jury. The winners not only get their work displayed, but are also paid a small honorarium, funded by Bell and StreetARToronto.

Michael Kupka, 62, has created one mural each year for the past four years. For this year’s historic Toronto theme, he painted one of two pieces south of the Ryerson book store, outside the Tim Horton’s. His latest depicts the Group of Seven’s Toronto studio on Severn Street. “You know your artwork is going to be there forever, as long as the paint lasts,” he says.

Dan Buckley, a fellow art teacher at 6 St. Joseph St., agrees. “I think me and Mike Kupka have the most commissioned public art within a quarter-mile radius of Yonge and Bloor,” he says. “Any time I get a date, I’m gonna say, ‘let’s go by Yonge and Bloor.’ Go for a stroll with her and show her four of my paintings.”