By Sarah CR Clark

St. Anthony Park’s own Ruby Thompson was selected by Forecast Public Art as one of four Minnesota-based artists to have their work featured on utility boxes in downtown St. Paul.

According to Forecast, the utility box project sought to transform “everyday infrastructure into storytelling canvases that reflect the identity, memory and vitality of Saint Paul.”

Thompson knows a thing or two about St. Paul. Now a resident of the city’s Frogtown neighborhood, she grew up in St. Anthony Park. As a young student, Thompson attended the Friends School (in the Midway neighborhood) and graduated from Avalon School (in the SAP neighborhood) in 2012.

Thompson later moved to Olympia, Washington, to attend Evergreen State College, where she studied art. After spending time on the West Coast, Thompson was excited to return to St. Paul and make it her home again after graduating.

Thompson knew she loved making art from a young age. Though, at the time, her elementary school didn’t have a designated visual arts class, learning and experimenting with artistic expression was built into every lesson. For Thompson, that early interdisciplinary exposure worked.

In July 2025, Forecast Public Arts extended a call to St. Paul artists and from the 123 responders, Thompson and her fellow winners were notified in mid-August. By the end of August, 16 utility boxes in and around Mears Park and Kellogg Mall Park were transformed.

Forecast stated, “From the story of the Underground Railroad to Southeast Asian family dinners to the Red Caps of Union Depot and native species of plants and animals of the Mississippi, each artist offers a new way to see into the history and people of our capital city.”

Each artist’s work covers four sides of four utility boxes. When asked if all 16 sides featured its own image, Thompson replied, “Yeah, basically. One of mine actually has a smaller box on the box, for a total of 17.”

Thompson’s utility boxes feature different ecosystems found in St. Paul: the Mississippi River, floodplain forests, oak savannahs and one regarding local nocturnal animals.

“I’ve always liked combining science and art,” Thompson said. “I’ve vaguely been interested in botanical and scientific illustration, but I also enjoy showing the personality of plants and animals which is harder to do in technical work.”

One way that Ruby illustrated the personality of plants and animals in this project was to include folk-art inspired ornamental borders around her images.

Those hard-working borders had a second job, which she described in her artist statement: “I wanted to play with the three-dimensionality of the boxes by having borders around each side that connected to one another, showing their relationship to one another—we are all part of one whole.”

Thompson created each image digitally in Procreate. Then the final images were printed on durable, weather-hardy vinyl wraps.

“This project was a lot bigger than the size in which I usually work,” Thompson said. “I make a lot of digital portraits, so comprehending how large and detailed these images would end up was a challenge.”

Thompson describes herself as an artist working full-time hours for part-time pay. She paints portraits of humans and pets and designs prints for the Friends School Mother’s Day Weekend Plant Sale at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds. Her current favorite mediums are watercolor, gouache and fiber.

Thompson invites all her neighbors to “slow down and look at the art around.” Specifically, “walk around downtown St. Paul once it’s snowing because there’s going to be a lot of very brightly colored things to look at,” Thompson said.

For more about Ruby’s art, visit @rubylith.art on Instagram.

Sarah CR Clark is a regular Bugle freelance writer.

Photo: Rudy Thompson is one of four Minnesota artists to have their work featured on utility boxes in downtown St. Paul. Submitted photo.