Graffiti Outlaw Gets Respect : After Years of Illegal Painting, Artist Now Paid to Decorate Walls

Alex Castro never used to care much about the surfaces on which he painted. Until a year ago, no wall in Long Beach was immune to his attack.

Operating at night, Castro would dash out of the shadows, leveling his spray can like a weapon at the intended target. Then, colors dispensed, he would fade quickly into the darkness, becoming once again part of the legendary netherworld of outlaw graffiti artists.

From 1984 to 1988, Castro says, he painted more than 90 illegal works, many of them on the walls of Franklin Middle School where he once had been a student. Distinctive in their colorfulness, the paintings--some of them as large as 35 by 15 feet--became legendary in the surrounding community. “Everyone at the school wanted them kept,” said Castro, who in the vernacular of the underground was known as a “bomber,” or real artist, rather than a “tagger” who just left signatures.

Usually the paintings were scrubbed clean by school officials within hours. Twice he got arrested. And often, Castro recalls, his excursions led to uncomfortable interrogations by Linda Moore, the vice principal at Poly High School where Castro was enrolled at the time.

“I’d go ‘round and ‘round with him,” Moore said, “but without any proof you are limited in what you can do.”

Then something strange happened. School and city officials began taking Castro’s art seriously. Almost overnight he went from being one of the city’s most notorious graffiti outlaws to one of its most respected “spray can artists.” And today Castro, 21, gets paid to do the very thing for which school security personnel once chased him off campus.

“He’s a positive role model,” said Moore, now principal of Franklin which, ironically, is the site of the young man’s first major legal mural project. “It’s too bad we can’t organize more of this.”

The fact that any of it is being organized at all is at least partially attributable to Dixie Swift, the city’s cultural program supervisor, who “discovered” Castro last year. “I became very interested in who the (graffiti artists) were,” said Swift, who operates a municipal art gallery dedicated to celebrating the city’s ethnic diversity by encouraging artistic expression in its various cultural traditions. Among those traditions, of course, is that of the Latino barrio in which Castro grew up and which inspired his art. “I wanted to know who the very best was,” Swift said, “and Alex’s name kept coming up.”

After meeting him at a city-sponsored workshop on mural art, Swift said, she convinced the young man to apply for a “mural mentor” project under which the city hired several youths to work on murals. Later, using spray cans, Castro painted a piece for exhibition at Swift’s gallery. And finally, through Swift’s recommendation, he got involved in his current project: a 160-foot spray-paint mural on the back wall of a new mini-mall facing the Franklin Middle School playground near 7th Street and Orange Avenue in the inner city’s gang-infested Anaheim corridor.

“Alex has a natural talent,” Swift said. “He’s not afraid of color and he uses it in very sophisticated ways.”

The project is being paid for by Art Bullard, a Long Beach real estate broker and developer who owns the mall and put up $500 to cover Castro’s expenses. “We felt like we should get involved in the community,” Bullard said. Besides lessening the likelihood that his building will be attacked by illegal graffiti artists, he said, the mural’s presence might even attract customers. “I think it has a benefit when people realize that you’re not just there to take things out of the community,” Bullard said. “People tend to shop at the stores they think are involved with them.”

The school pitched in by conducting a contest to provide themes for the mural and by encouraging student participation in the project.

And among the 10 to 30 students and former students who have shown up to help out are a number of “taggers”--young people whose experience, like Castro’s, heretofore consisted primarily of leaving their stylized signatures at illegal sites ranging from flood control channels to the sides of city buses.

“This is better,” said one 15-year-old who, fearing retribution from legal authorities, spoke only on the condition that his name not be used. “You don’t have to worry about getting chased by the cops or the property owners, and you don’t have to worry about (the work) being buffed.”

Said a 16-year-old cohort: “This will be here a long time. More people will see it.”

Working on ladders from a cart full of spray cans, the youngsters form a dedicated team that has spent several weekends intently shaping the look of the wall under Castro’s tutelage. The result so far, at first glance, appears almost indistinguishable from much of the illegal graffiti in the rest of the city.

A closer examination, however, reveals some differences. Amid the stylized drawings of Indians, monsters and cartoon characters are some words barely legible to the inexperienced observer. Among them: “Love yourself,” “friends,” “stop crime,” and “stay together.”

“It’s a message of encouragement for the school and the community,” said Castro, resting briefly as his younger charges continued working. “It’s really giving them something to look at for support.”

The artist said he expects the mural to be completed by mid-December. But already its effect on his own life and work has been considerable, he said.

“This came at a point where my progress had stopped,” Castro said. “I wasn’t getting the high I used to because nobody ever saw (my work) except the guys in our culture.”

Pausing to impart an admiring glance at the work-in-progress, he barked a few instructions to the busy helpers, then continued.

“This is art,” Castro said, smiling. “It’s not meant to be done on illegal walls.”