Spraying Away the Summer Doldrums : Artists Volunteer to Teach Workshops to Keep Young Hands and Minds Occupied

About 80 young graffiti writers assembled in a parking lot Saturday to spray-paint old refrigerators, chairs and boards donated by the Salvation Army.

The day of spray-painting, rap music and dancing, titled “Hip-Hop Happ,” kicked off a summer-long youth arts program put together by Los Angeles arts and community groups in response to the Los Angeles riots.

It includes six weeks of art workshops, an art exhibit and weekend theater performances in the Arroyo Outback Theatre, a refurbished former vaudeville house.

The program will conclude with a two-day street fair Aug. 15 and 16. Other sponsors are the Arroyo Arts Collective, the Highland Park Chamber of Commerce, Arroyo Seco Art in the Park and the Graffiti Arts Coalition.

A picture by a local artist of a city skyline with a call to “Re-Wing the City of Angels” has become the emblem of the summer program because “it’s almost as though our wings had been clipped” by the riots, said Jude Lucas, artistic director of the Outback Theatre.

Although Northeast Los Angeles was not hit hard by the unrest, Lucas said that community groups wanted to give youths in the ethnically diverse area a constructive outlet for their energy this summer.

In the parking lot of the Outback Theatre, graffiti aficionados seemed pleased by the opportunity to doodle and draw with aerosol paint under approving eyes.

“It gives me a thrill,” said Marcus Bryant, an 18-year-old from Highland Park. “I feel amazed by what I can do with a spray can.”

Bryant had just put the finishing touches on a van that was donated for the day by a neighborhood artist.

The event also attracted some Jerry Brown for President enthusiasts who call themselves Broccoli Farmers for Democracy. Named for President Bush’s aversion to the vegetable, the group chose “Hip-Hop Happ” as the launching point for a cross-country trip in a graffiti-painted school bus to the Democratic National Convention in New York City.

Although many people regard graffiti as a menacing sign of urban decay, event organizers stressed that merely painting over graffiti is not the solution.

“If you want to do something about graffiti, you have to transform it,” said Luis Ituarte, program coordinator for Arroyo Seco Art in the Park, a division of the city of Los Angeles’ Cultural Affairs Department.

Legitimizing graffiti is, nonetheless, “a big risk,” Ituarte said. Illustrating the point, an overeager writer began spray-painting unsanctioned territory in the parking lot.

“Hey, hey, hey,” said Ituarte, reacting too late to prevent squiggles of aerosol paint from taking shape on the pavement.

Inside the theater, Stephanie Sydney, coordinator of the visual arts workshops, showed a photo of a mural painted by youths the weekend after the riots--an effort by graffiti writers to join the healing process. She said one young artist, reaching for a form of expression he was unaccustomed to, asked her how to spell educate, a word he used in his painting.

“It broke my heart,” she said.

The summer workshops begin Monday and will cover such topics as photography, comedy, painting, “the business of art” and hip-hop dancing. Class registration continues through Friday at the Arroyo Outback Theatre, 106 S. Ave. 58.

The program has yet to receive any grant money, so artists have volunteered their time to teach the workshops.

“I want to teach graffiti artists to print on a medium they own,” said Gaetano Marino, who plans a class on producing and selling silk-screen T-shirts.

In addition, an ongoing exhibit at the Arroyo Outback Theatre combines graffiti art by young painters with street-inspired works of older, established artists. Most of the graffiti pieces come from previous Los Angeles exhibits, but some will be those produced Saturday in the parking lot.