Graffiti Central : Proposal: Woman wants walls built in park to attract street artists. And she wants big corporations to pick up the tab.

Wacky Idea No. 1: Fill a city park with blank walls built specifically to attract graffiti.

Wacky Idea No. 2: Get big corporations such as Nike, Nestle and Reebok to not only pay for construction of the graffiti walls, but also for the cans of spray paint that street artists would use to cover them.

Well, in Los Angeles, wacky rarely means bad. More often it means: How can I buy the screen rights? These city-sanctioned graffiti walls are one woman’s vision of the future for a little-used Los Angeles city park. Some big companies have already expressed interest. And in the aftermath of the riots, virtually any rational ideas to improve race relations are attracting the interested ears of city--and corporate--officials.

While several cities already have projects to encourage street artists, this would mark the first such experiment that actually matches corporate sponsors with graffiti artists. And if the program succeeds in Los Angeles, the woman behind the proposal would like to take it national.

“The art of graffiti isn’t wrong--it’s the placement of it that gets people upset,” said Beverly Steele, president of the Steele Organization, a firm with offices in Los Angeles and Wildwood, Fla., which specializes in marketing to the needs of minority children. “Let’s encourage graffiti somewhere that it will be welcomed.”

After discussions with city officials, Steele has approached a number of prospective corporate sponsors about underwriting the project at Arroyo Seco Park in the Highland Park area. She selected the location because a cement channel that runs through the park has long been a popular spot for graffiti artists.

Instead of threatening street artists with fines, she suggests, why not encourage them by constructing a dozen walls built expressly for the young artists to paint on?

Corporate sponsors would be responsible for the upkeep of the walls--and they would even be asked to pay for the spray paint, brushes and other materials used by the artists. The walls would be whitewashed every few weeks, allowing others the chance to make their own marks.

In exchange for their sponsorships, the companies would get permanent logos on the walls. And corporate officials are not pooh-poohing the idea.

“Anything that contributes to creative uses of art--and is not destructive--interests us,” said Dusty Kidd, a Nike spokesman. He said Nike would consider being a sponsor.

Rival Reebok is also considering the proposal. “It’s our kind of mind-set,” said John Gillis, director of marketing communications at Reebok, “bringing kids into an environment where they can express themselves.”

Nestle too said it might be a sponsor. “We have quite an interest in modern art. We have it throughout our headquarters in Glendale,” said Richard Curd, a Nestle spokesman. “To some people, graffiti is modern art.”

And to Steele, graffiti represents a plausible communications link between many minority children and the society that usually ignores them. “We’ll try to keep the censorship down to a minimum,” Steele said. While gang graffiti and profanity would be strongly discouraged--it would not specifically be forbidden.

A prominent West Coast architect has already sketched preliminary designs for the project, which would include about a dozen wood and concrete walls--each six to eight feet high. City officials estimate that it could take at least a year for project approval. But Steele would like to see the estimated $200,000 project--still in early planning stages--get underway this summer.

Steele got the idea for the project after attending a church service in South-Central Los Angeles. She was leaving church and noticed a public service billboard ad that warned, “Graffiti: Don’t Do That Mess.”

“The ad was very intimidating,” she said. So Steele said she decided to try to help focus the graffiti in a positive way.

For nearly a decade, the city of Los Angeles has sponsored a citywide mural program, where artists are paid to paint contemporary art on the sides of old buildings.

Other cities have attempted graffiti art programs too, but never linked with corporate sponsorship. Since 1984, the city of Philadelphia has tried to steer youngsters nabbed for graffiti vandalism into an outdoor mural art program.

Earlier this year, the city of Huntington Beach began a program that grants free permits to outdoor artists who want to paint on a retaining wall that runs along the beachside cliffs. Since January, the city has given out 300 permits to artists.

The area--which is seven-tenths of a mile long--has since become somewhat of a commercial success. Graffiti artists are sometimes seen handing out their business cards to admirers. And some advertisers have recently begun using the area along the wall for commercial shoots.

Besides erasing the occasional racial slurs that appear on the wall, the city does not allow any commercial advertising to be painted on it, said Naida Osline, the city’s cultural affairs supervisor. One local restaurant recently tried to paint in an ad--and was rebuffed.

But Osline has some skepticism about the proposed Los Angeles project. “I think it has to build up its own history,” she said. “I don’t know if you can just say, ‘OK, this is going to be a graffiti wall,’ and expect people to accept that.”

Los Angeles officials, however, have been very encouraging--so far. Steele received a letter from Mayor Tom Bradley, who credited her proposal with promoting “a constructive and creative form of expression.” The mayor also noted that the project “could ‘legitimize’ those with truly creative talents, and possibly inspire them to follow artistic careers.”

Another key city official is a big fan of the project. “It’s not easy to separate street art from graffiti vandalism,” said Adolfo V. Nodal, general manager of the city’s Cultural Affairs Department. “But there is an art movement within this that we cannot just stamp out. We have to harness all this energy into something good for society.”