Spray-Paint Vandals Make a Bigger Mark

Local mural production may be flourishing these days, but mural vandalism via graffiti seems to be worse than ever.

“It’s the biggest hurdle in terms of whether muralists have the incentive to keep painting murals,” said muralist Kent Twitchell. “If (graffiti vandals) hit the one I’m working on now, it’ll probably take that incentive right out of me.”

Twitchell said that his Olympic freeway murals of artists Lita Albuquerque and Jim Morphesis at the 7th Street underpass of the Harbor Freeway, common targets for vandals, have been more frequently marred with graffiti recently. What’s worse is that lately the vandals seem to have forsaken an attitude of “honor among thieves” and now scribble directly on the murals’ faces, no longer only on the blank “negative spaces,” he said.

Twitchell and other muralists believe that gang members defacing their works with slogans and symbols are responsible for most of recent rise in graffiti.

“The other day five Crips came in here with spray paint and one said, ‘I could fix that up real nice,’ ” said Roberto Delgado, referring to the mural he is painting at an East Los Angeles housing project. “We were taking bets that it would be all covered up. It wasn’t, but over the course of time people are going to put stuff over it.”

Most muralists cover their works with a protective acrylic coating that prevents the graffiti from penetrating through, but the graffiti must still be cleaned off.

Twitchell, with about 20 murals to his credit, is probably the city’s most prolific artist. He shares Delgado’s pessimistic attitude.

“I’ve seen more graffiti in the last two years since the efforts began to clean it up,” said Twitchell, who has sued the man who painted over his popular “Freeway Lady” mural formerly overlooking the Hollywood Freeway near downtown. “Nothing that’s being done now seems to be working.”

Despite such gloomy observations, efforts to address the problem continue. Some are community-based programs that put community members to work cleaning up graffiti everywhere. Other programs are more specifically geared toward mural preservation.

In May, the Los Angeles Unified School District will offer a mural workshop co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Mural Conservancy and Art Educators of America which will include mural inspection and conservation techniques.

And there is the Neighborhood Pride: Great Walls Unlimited project, which has a $250,000 grant from the City of Los Angeles to wage graffiti clean-up efforts as well as to get to the root of the problem. By providing youths with such constructive outlets as mural painting, city officials hope the youths won’t be tempted to join gangs or engage in delinquent behavior.

James Anderson, a 22-year-old who is helping Roderick Sykes paint one of the Neighborhood Pride murals, believes that the program will work by example.

“It’s like telling the young kids that graffiti is not the thing. If you want to put something on a wall, why not put a flower or a human being sharing something with another human being? Unite together rather than painting gang words or symbols.”