Dec 5, 2007 5:14 pm US/Central
Fort Worth Students Creating Graffiti Art Murals
FORT WORTH (CBS 11 / TXA 21) ―
Near a broad wall of Fort Worth's Carter-Riverside High School, a group of students is unloading a box of spray paint cans. Graffiti in this area is a growing problem.
"You think it's a bad thing because a lot of people tag," said student Lizetta Flores. "And there's a difference between graffiti and tagging. Tagging is just people wanting to get their names up. Graffiti is more like art."
Spray cans hiss behind her as her classmates practice their spray painting strokes on a piece of paper.
Randy Hernandez eyes the blank wall with a spray can in his hand. "Ever since I was a freshman," he said, "I told my teacher I've always wanted to do graffiti and put it in an art show. And she said, 'nah, they don't want that in there,' y'know?"
But this graffiti session is a bit different. A powered lift whines as students begin to rise on its platform.
"We're going up!" one student cried out. These graffiti artists are raising street graffiti to art. On the ground an art instructor goes over their concept with the students.
"Are bricks going to be shooting out right here?" one asked. The teacher responded enthusiastically, "Heck yeah!"
Three rival high schools are giving their art students a clean slate. In this case it is a wall on the side of the school with a mottled, sky-like blue background for the artists to start on.
The schools' art teachers, from Carter-Riverside, Diamond Hill and North Side, allowed their students to come up with designs for the massive, graffiti inspired murals. Each school will have one element of the theme: "Life, Liberty and the pursuit..."
"We'll definitely take that a little higher," one student told the teacher as he pointed at the outline of his first lines of spray paint on the wall.
"Yeah, yeah," she said. "And who says you can't go out of the field of color?"
The students are encouraged to be creative. The Carter-Riverside mural, "Life", has large, balloon-like letters spelling out the word that will appear to be breaking through the wall. In and around each letter are the students' interpretations of the word. There are symbols of unity, symbols of Texas and a spray paint can with colorful fire pouring from it.
"My grandmother had a saying," explained Flores. "Life is short, live your life. That's what I'm going to put up on my letter."
"I tell you, their hard work is about to pay off because this is awesome," said Mary Boswell, the Carter-Riverside art teacher. "This is these guys life. Whether it's reclaiming the streets from the taggers who are messing up our buildings and recreating the art or its taking their interpretations."
In an area where tagging is a problem, graffiti is a solution.
"The kids who dropped out and are doing it, are going to want to come back here and do other pieces," Hernandez said.
"With a program like this they can basically think about themselves more seriously as a visual artist not just a tagger," said art teacher Maria Patino.
The first mural is expected to be completed by December 19th.
(© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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