SOLANA BEACH — A group of high school Girl Scouts who embarked on a mural project in Solana Beach earlier this year said they still want to spread their message of kindness in the community, despite their artwork being repeatedly vandalized.
The project was led by Troop 3143, comprising six young women from Solana Beach who attend San Dieguito Academy, Canyon Crest Academy, and Torrey Pines High School. The troop worked with the city over the past year to beautify six utility boxes on San Andres and Highland Drive.
The idea for the murals evolved as the members pursued their Girl Scouts Senior Visionary Awards. All the young women began developing artwork in various mediums, including painting, drawing, digital art, friendship bracelets and playlists, illustrating what an ideal world would look like.
The Girl Scouts wanted to share their work with the community, and with the support of the Solana Beach Public Arts Commission and city officials, were granted permission to paint the six utility boxes.
After cleaning and prepping the utility boxes for painting in February, they got to work, finding time to complete the murals between school and other responsibilities. Some nights, they would use light to project a stencil of the artwork onto the box, allowing them to continue their work.
“The message I wanted to convey was how women and girls hold power and should be willing to show it and use it,” said Girl Scout and incoming Torrey Pines senior Sienna Barry. “Most people who saw us making the artwork were very appreciative of our effort in beautifying the forgotten utility boxes.”
While the murals were scheduled to be completed by late June, their work was never completed due to two incidents of vandalization in April and May.
In mid-April, the troop discovered that someone had spray-painted white over the in-progress artwork on two of the utility boxes, including a painting of the world. They were able to remove the majority of the spray paint from one of the boxes and taped signs to the boxes, letting people know that there were murals in progress.
A couple of days prior, one of the Girl Scouts reported being approached by an angry man who criticized the mural while she was working on it and demanded to see a permit, despite them having permission from the city.
In late May, after making more progress on the boxes, the troop discovered that all of the boxes had been painted black, completely covering their murals. At that point, they did not have the supplies or the time to remove the paint and start over.
“They used their own troop money from cookie sales to fund all the supplies that they bought,” said troop leader Cathy Barnes, who is also the mother of one of the troop members. “They’re feeling kind of sad that their message got lost in everything, that something they were doing that was nice got shut down.”
While this setback was demoralizing, the troop plans to come back with another design for the utility boxes, hopefully within the next couple of months.
“The vandalism has stopped us from spreading our primary message. We never expected anything like this to happen, so it was very surprising that this happened twice. If possible, we would enjoy doing another community art project in order to continue to spread our message,” said another Girl Scout, who asked not to have her name included.
Assistant City Manager Dan King said while the city has seen incidents of vandalism, there has never been a situation like this where murals on utility boxes were targeted. He said the city has discussed the problem with the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department, and that the city is ready to support the troop if they decide to move forward with another design.
“They put a lot of work into it, which is why it’s really unfortunate that this happened,” King said. “Hopefully, we can finally get their art put out there.”
Barnes said she is proud of the girls for their resilience. The troop has been together since the first grade, and this will likely be their last major project as a unit.
“They all are really wonderful, smart, active, great girls,” she said. “They are being quite resilient about still continuing.”
