Contributing to my community has been a dream of mine since I was a little girl. I’ve always wanted to do something that would have my name on it; whether that be writing a book, or getting one of my photographs published, it’s always been something that I’ve desired for.

Glendale is where a lot of things happen. By that, I mean it’s where we all come together — the whole La Crescenta/La Canada communities mesh with the Glendalian and together they create the mecca that is Brand Boulevard. It’s not so much of a physical meshing, as in the cities themselves don’t converge, but the people of all these cities come together in once place, essentially. We all come to Glendale to hang out; it’s just the place where we meet halfway.

When I found out that there was a clean-up effort in Glendale, I pounced on the idea. Not necessarily out of excitement. I mean let’s be real . . . cleaning the streets at 8 a.m. on a Saturday doesn’t sound appealing at all. I jumped at the idea because I had to write this story for a class grade and I figured this would be an appropriate choice. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy myself, honestly.

Saturday morning comes and I dragged myself to City Hall at about 8:30 a.m. with my fellow staff writer Allen Dishigrikyan. We check in at the booth, the SoCal sun already beating down on our necks, and we’re assigned an intersection. “You will be helping Arpine, is that okay?” says the woman with whom we signed our release forms; “she’s painting an electrical box on Lexington and Brand, make sure to grab some water,” she said as we both looked at each other in disbelief.

“I really wasn’t expecting us, as inexperienced students, to be assigned the hearty task of helping a professional artist beautify something,” Dishigrikyan says. Both he and I were a bit surprised that our abilities as painters weren’t even questioned. “I mean, I at first was worried that we wouldn’t get to do as much painting since we have no experience with that. But once we met Arpine, she made clear that we would be doing in fact, a lot.”

We went to the intersection and lo and behold, there was Arpine Shakhbandaryan, the artist. She greeted us with a smile. “Thank you for coming!” she said. “You guys aren’t here doing community service because you did something bad, right?” We knew it was going to be a good day when she greeted us with humor.

Almost immediately we were handed pots of paint and Shakhbandaryan was quick to trust us into making the right decisions. She told us that we’ll be using a lot of blue, light and dark. Green would be out of the question, though. “The only color we’re not going to be messing with is green. It’s too hard to get a light and dark for that,” she said as she put white into the jar of royal blue.

Shakhbandryan was commissioned by the city, along with 26 or so other artists, to paint an electrical box in an effort to bring art into the City of Glendale. There were a total of 54 applicants and among them was Clark’s own art teacher, Nyrie Gharibian. Gharibian worked with a Clark student, junior Vardui Grigoryan, on a box on Brand Blvd., directly across from Bloomingdale’s.

Grigoryan worked a very long day on Saturday to complete her box. “Very long day is an understatement; I was there from 8:30 a.m. until 9 p.m. with Ms. Gharibian,” says Grigoryan. She and Gharibian worked to paint a design based off of an image of Gharibian and her niece. “We put origami cranes to the side with her niece,” Grigoryan said. “We put in arrows on the other side as well.”

When it was our time to paint however, Dishigrikyan and I both had detailed instructions in regards of what we were supposed to do.Shakhbandaryan showed us the prints we would be working from after we finished mixing the paints. “I painted the original designs in watercolor and printed them so we could tape it to the box and see what we were working on,” she said. “I was worried at first the colors wouldn’t translate well, but once we got into it that worry went away.” Shakhbandaryan’s theme for the electrical box was inspired by Celtic themes and Armenian manuscripts she had done in the past. Each side of the box had its own scene: facing Lexington was a peacock, facing Brand a blue coiled design with gold accents. The other two sides were comprised of a pomegranate tree and a green and blue, floral-esque, vertical design.

I was assigned to do the basic color blocking for the blue coiled design that was facing Brand. At first, I was terrified that I would do something wrong and the whole box would be ruined. I’ve had zero experience with painting anything outside a basic still-life and an abstract piece here and there. But Arpine assured me that any mistake I made “could just be painted over, that’s what makes this great.”

I asked Arpine what made her want to do this and she said that she believed and supported the cause heavily. “I think it’s good that the city’s trying to bring art and integrate it into the daily lives of people.” At one point, a commissioner walked by the box and said, “Your designs were in the first batch and I set it aside, I knew I wanted this on a box and it looks beautiful.” It was equally as rewarding to see and hear the reactions of local passerby. Many “oohs” and “ahhs” was heard as the three of us painted away.

I think one of the greatest parts of doing this whole thing was getting to sign my name on the side of the box I worked on. We finished painting for the day around 5 p.m., nearly six hours after we had first arrived; it didn’t feel like six hours, and once our time was up the main outlines for the blue coil and floral-y design were mostly completed.

I remember driving away at the end of the day and making three U-turns just to see the box from all the sides. I have my name on something that makes Glendale a little bit prettier now, and that’s probably the coolest thing.