Putting Feelings Into Form

The inner light of the artists shows through in each piece at this gallery--paintings blossom in splashes of color, three-dimensional works seem ready to jump from their pedestals and mixed-media images glisten with creative sparkle.

In their 12th annual art show at Cal State Dominguez Hills, the children of the Los Angeles Unified School District show the world their joyful, unspoiled view of it. But there also is a darker side this year. While adults talk about rebuilding Los Angeles, their children are quietly using art to come to terms with the riots.

“Horable, horable, horable, horable,” Anabel Reyes, 8, has scrawled in her black-and-orange abstract. “Machine guns, firemen, angry, kill, bad bad bad . . . sad sad sad.”

But among the bits of tissue, squiggles of glue, plastic wrap and foil there are messages of hope.

“We can get along,” 6-year-old Tory Barnett of Leapwood Avenue School has written on his drawing. Below his words, stick figures of an Asian boy, a black boy and a white girl hold hands, smiling and waving.