The Art of Survival : ‘Youth Arts Festival’ will celebrate creations of kids, thanks to hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons.

Thanks to a hip-hop media mogul and some dedicated educators, the creative visions of hundreds of Los Angeles-area students, from elementary through high school, will be on display in the “I, Too, Am America Youth Arts Festival,” Sunday afternoon at Barnsdall Art Park.

The varied and vivid work--including paintings, handmade books and prints, animation cels and video screenings--is the result of an unusual program of special arts projects and workshops provided by artists, community arts organizations and teacher-supported collaborations.

It was made possible by what may seem an unlikely source: hip-hop empire builder Russell Simmons and his Rush Arts Foundation.

Simmons is founder of entertainment and media giant Rush Communications, whose biggest subsidiary, Def Jam Recordings, is home to some of the rap industry’s most successful and controversial artists. He is emphatic in his support of the arts as vital in kids’ lives.

“A lot of kids wouldn’t survive if not for the chance to practice and appreciate art,” Simmons said in a phone interview from New York, home to his Phat Fashions flagship store.

“I know the difference between a kid who can’t let it out and a kid who can,” he said. “My brother is a poet and a painter. He’s the one who really showed me how he expressed himself through his work.”

Rush Arts, which Simmons established with his brothers, visual artists Daniel Simmons and Run DMC member Joseph Simmons, was created to engage urban youth with the creative arts. It funds programs in the New York City and Los Angeles areas.

“For me,” Russell Simmons said, “it’s like, do you build jails or jobs? Do you build juvenile facilities or recreation facilities? Do you create juvenile programs for kids to occupy their time and express themselves?”

Barbara Golding, co-director of Los Angeles Educational Partnership Humanitas/Academies, said the program, in its second year, has been a wonderful opportunity for the children and the groups involved. Golding has been facilitator for the Rush Arts Collaborative, made up of the Educational Partnership’s Humanitas Program, CalArts Community Arts Partnership, Friends of the Junior Arts Center, Inner-City Arts, Barnsdall Art Park, the L.A. Unified School District and Performing Tree.

She said that Anne Simmons (no relation to the other Simmonses) of Rush Communications asked the the partnership to help urban youth by promoting the opportunity for them to experience art.

“She said, ‘How can you help us do it?’ Very rarely does somebody come and say, ‘Do something good for kids, and if it’s successful, we’ll do it again,’ ” Golding said.

Golding estimates that about 600 children and teenagers participated in this year’s program, including students at eight high schools who used a sub-theme, “I, Too, Celebrate Los Angeles,” to inspire their works, which include visual art displays and video animation that will screen at the festival.

Educators and others have long decried the cutbacks or omission of arts from public schools, noting arts education’s value in developing critical thinking and self-esteem. Their position has been echoed recently by a corporate view that job seekers with arts backgrounds make better employees.

Golding agrees that “there’s value in terms of promoting critical thinking, but we have students who haven’t even had the chance to think about what art making means, how it expands horizons. They haven’t even been given an opportunity to try it out.

“People talk negatively about the way teenagers behave, and I think, well, what have we done to show them something better, what have we done to enrich the way they think about the world?” Golding said.

Russell Simmons said that art education should be in schools. “When I came up, we did have some kind of art classes in school. They taught us a bunch of garbage that was not relevant to us, but to learn to paint, to appreciate other people’s art and the idea of it, was at least taught to us.

“I get a lot out of it,” he said of Rush Arts programs for young people. “ ‘Cause I’m not supposed to have what I have anyway,” he joked, “so I better give some of it away. I survive watching them survive. It’s a big deal for me.”

Festival-goers of all ages can indulge their artistic yens, too: There will be arts workshops in printmaking, Mexican tin painting, African wrap dolls, mural painting and artists’ books. Entertainment includes performances by the CalArts Latin Jazz Ensemble and music and dance by Is Abalaye.

* “I, Too, Am America Youth Arts Festival,” Barnsdall Art Park, 4800 Hollywood Blvd., Hollywood, Sunday, 12:30 to 4 p.m. Free. (213) 660-3362.