Jordan RiefeWhile large-scale murals and a proliferation of new high profile street art can often be a harbinger of gentrification, that is emphatically not the case when it comes to Dr. Maya Angelou Community High School at East 53 Street and Towne Avenue in South Central Los Angeles. There, 30 artists gathered last month to beautify the campus with over two dozen murals thematically linked to the school and the deep roots of the community around it.
“You know how South Central is known to be a bad neighborhood, but if we show our true colors, South Central can be a good place,” says high school senior Noe Vargas, who turned out to interview some of the artists for his senior project. “This place can be known to be very creative.”
It was not the usual empty plaza after-school scenario at the campus during the paint-in, but rather a buzzing scene with artists and students working together and, inch by inch, walls coming to life. In the eye of the hurricane was Rabi, half of the street art duo Cyrcle, this time teaming up with prolific French artist JR, who was absent, though his Inside Out truck was on site. Inside the truck is a mobile photo studio that produces large-scale portraits of sitters through a slot on the outside of the vehicle. The east wall of the quad is wallpapered with these images of students’ faces as a backdrop to Rabi’s chromatic image of a silhouetted girl with Angelou’s caged bird centering the composition.
Rabi at Maya Angelou High School (Jordan Riefe)
“ ‘[I Know] Why the Caged Bird Sings.’ It’s impossible not to associate Maya Angelou with that poem,” Rabi explains. “I didn’t want to make something super literal and obvious and banging you over the head with cliché Maya Angelou stuff. The bird silhouette, that was as literal as I wanted to go.”
Around the corner, Shepard Fairey works from a 1969 photo of Angelou by photographer Chester Higgins Jr., applying his signature graphic style with roughly 45 gallons of acrylic paint and 1,200 cans of aerosol to complete the 160-foot long mural.
L.A. duo the Perez brothers capture in their mural the spirit of low-riding and skate culture popular in the area, and Miami-based Spanish artist Axel Void takes inspiration from a family barbecue he photographed only a few blocks away, with “We are all immigrants” written across the image.
Perez Bros. at Maya Angelou High School (Static Medium)
L.A. artist Zuco went with a small-world theme, depicting the planet ringed by people of all colors and cultures holding hands. Nearby, “They tried to bury us. They didn’t realize we were seeds,” reads a wall by Tochtlita that shows women and children growing with the grass and flowers out of the ground. Artist Huge spells the poet’s name in his trademark balloon-like letters, while Portuguese artist Diogo Machado, known as Add Fuel, spells out a bilingual call for unity: “Somos uno. We are one.”
“More than anything, we’re frustrated,” says Andi Xoch of the East Side women’s art collective Ni Santas, from the mantra that translates to “Not sluts, not saints, just women.” Their mural features images of music legends old and new, like Nipsey Hussle, Billie Holiday and Roy Ayers, over an image of the intersection of Central and Slauson, along the city’s Historic Jazz Corridor.
“Trump in office has pushed people to not only mourn, but I see it as a funeral,” continues Xoch. “Every time there’s a tragedy in a family, it only brings people together and makes people hold onto each other and support each other as much as we can. So, I feel like we’re feeling that in our community. We’re seeing that in our collective, we’re seeing injustice, we’re seeing inequality — not just with women, but with brown women. We’re being targeted. It’s not only frustrating, but it’s also pushing us to do more.”
Jasm One at Maya Angelou High School (Kelly Fogel)
Principal Hugo Carlos grew up in the community and has witnessed firsthand the transition from a mostly African-American area, a few decades earlier, to a predominantly Latinx neighborhood. “I’ve seen the evolution of it,” he says, noting, “we’re a community that invests dollars and time on projects to inspire our kids.” He did just that when he reached out to Warren Brand of Branded Arts, which partners artists with clients who want to beautify their buildings.
Branded Arts made headlines with their work with LAUSD, initiated in 2016 at Robert F. Kennedy Community School in Koreatown, especially when some in the neighborhood objected to artist Beau Stanton’s depiction of actor Ava Gardner with a sunbeam halo, which Korean residents felt resembled the Rising Sun flag of Imperial Japan, colonizers of Korea from 1910 to 1945. A peaceful resolution involving the artist, who never intended offense, was reworking the image in consultation with the neighborhood.
“We had a steering committee for the past year and a half that consisted of all these different groups that vetted the imagery,” says Branded Arts president Warren Brand, describing a process for the Dr. Maya Angelou School that includes community members, LAUSD officials and faculty, as well as the company’s curatorial team. “We also had town hall meetings and student committee meetings for the past four months every couple of weeks.”
The input from the students is what artist Rob Hill enjoyed the most as they helped lay down his abstract black and red (school colors), triangle design over the rooftop basketball court. “Their enthusiasm, their work ethic, kids showing up every day on time to come help, and prove their hand in the whole project,” says Hill, still buzzing from the experience. “Art is a universal thing. It speaks to everyone and it comes from everyone, from all shapes, different colors, sizes. I feel like art is the basis for many things. It definitely needs to be exposed more and exposed to the kids a lot more. It’s inspiration for them.”
WISEKNAVE Fine Art Documentation for Rabi of Cyrcle & JR’s Insideout Project at Branded Arts Maya Angelou Mural Festival in Los Angeles. 2019
For three days, the campus lit up with opening weekend symposiums featuring speakers from LACMA, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, Darryl “DMC” McDaniels who talked about his upbringing in New York City, and folks from Self Help Graphics, a Boyle Heights community art center and meeting place for Ni Santas. But no doubt the student body was a bit more amped by the spoken word poetry slam followed by a performance by Grammy Award-winning R&B artist Miguel, who talked about meditation and mindfulness before playing an acoustic set.
Until the 1970s, California had one of the nation’s leading arts programs. But a state law passed that year eliminated arts requirements from elementary teacher training, and eight years later Proposition 13 resulted in deep cuts in school art and music programs. Since then, 2002’s No Child Left Behind Act put so much emphasis on reading and math tests that subjects like art were scaled back. At its height in 2007, LAUSD invested $32 million in arts education, with another $46 million coming from state grants. During the recession, funding plummeted to $19 million but by 2015 the arts budget bounced back slightly, to $26.5 million.
“Launch Intention,” by L.A. artist Griffin Loop, is a large-scale steel paper airplane, one of the few sculptures, on which students wrote their “life intentions.” Ideally, it will inspire future generations and serve as a touchstone for those who one day return to reflect.
“It shows everybody’s perspective on what they see,” says high school junior, Johana Vargas, sitting by JR’s Inside Out truck. “An artist just took a picture of someone and pasted it up there. Everything’s art, I guess. It helps us be more creative in the future and have an open mind.”
Griffin Loop at Maya Angelou High School (Jordan Riefe)
Taking pictures and talking to teachers for a class assignment, Lyzxxy Quincanilla agrees, “It’s actually beautiful. You express yourself in a lot of different ways.”
Maria Cruz, a senior, thinks art helps students explore greater options. “It’s really great. It’s making our school more beautiful and vital. I like new things.”
Celine Figueroa takes pride in the school’s new look. “Usually we just have solid colors. So now we have more colors and it makes our school unique. I think a mural has a meaning.”
Principal Carlos is delighted the initiative he took three years ago has finally come to a successful culmination. “It was inspirational. And these are things we wanted for most of the murals, something related to Dr. Angelou and social justice, and also touching on the history of the community. It’s a positive feeling. When you walk, kids are proud of the work and also because some of the artists are local artists and I think it speaks to them.”
Mrbbaby at Maya Angelou High School (Jordan Riefe)
Shawn Michael Warren at Maya Angelou High School (Static Medium)
Shepard Fairey with Maya Angelou High School students (Kelly Fogel)
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