Artwarming : Students’ Drawings Replace Broken Panes at Store

Last month, the windows of the I. Magnin-Bullocks Wilshire department store lay in shards on the sidewalk. But this week, in the place of the broken panes, went a child’s drawing.

It was a way for the students of Rosemont Avenue Elementary School to help in the healing process in the wake of the worst urban unrest in this century. Students submitted more than 200 drawings to decorate the damaged store, some showing the smoke and destruction, most showing the sunshine that came after.

On Tuesday, the children were honored for what they had done.

“We felt it was important to portray as positive an image as possible,” said E.S. Jackson, group vice president of operations for I. Magnin, who presented the school’s principal with a computer. “We thought it would be great to say we have to put something good where there was something bad.”

Windows were broken and merchandise was looted from the first floor of the landmark store during the second day of the unrest, but no official damage estimate was available.

Graduating fifth-graders were among the 58 children honored at an ice cream reception in the store’s tea room, along with members of Rosemont’s orchestra and the 17 students whose artwork was chosen to decorate the plywood boards standing where the store’s front windows used to be.

It was a belated party for the students in Monet Brock’s fifth-grade class. Her students were to attend a graduation party in their honor two weeks ago at the store, but the festivities were canceled after violence broke out throughout the city after acquittals in the Rodney G. King beating case.

Store officials came up with the idea to ask students at the school to create artwork to brighten up the store. Within five hours of the request, children submitted dozens of drawings depicting what they thought of their city and what should be done to make it a better place to live. The theme was “Many Families, Many Communities, One City.”

Christine Brooks, 10, and her friends Kere Morita, 10, and Aisha Lane, 7, collaborated on a pencil drawing showing people standing around a globe. “It means for people to stick together,” said Christine. “We have to clean up our Earth instead of dirtying it up, and setting it on fire. Instead of (having) riots, stick together.”

It’s not a hard thing to do, the girls agreed. Kere, who is Japanese-American, pointed at Aisha, who is black. “I met her and I think she’s terrific,” Kere said. “I have another friend that’s Mexican, another who’s Chinese. I’m Japanese. And we all get along great.”