Local high school students have been meeting this summer to help design a monumental mural for the Crenshaw/Expo Station construction fence that will celebrate the surrounding neighborhood.

Through the nonprofit organization artworxLA and under the guidance of professional artist Michael Alvarez, workshops have been staged at nearby Lula Washington Dance Theatre, where students have learned about sketching, murals and pictograms in order to represent their community through art.

For inspiration, the students started with a walking tour of Crenshaw Boulevard around the future mural’s location.  In addition to learning about neighborhood landmarks like Crenshaw Square, Tak’s Café, Angelus Funeral Home, Tom Bradley Post Office and Los Angeles Sentinel newspaper, students had the opportunity to listen to members of the community speak about the neighborhood’s historic African American and Japanese American communities. The group greatly enjoyed listening to stories from local parents; Lula Washington; Mike Watanabe, Executive Director of the Asian American Drug Abuse Project; Evelyn Yoshimura, from Leimert Park; and Nick Nagatani, from Crenshaw/Leimert Park.

The student team was ready to start researching and developing their mural concepts after learning more about the community’s history and visiting the project site. The mural design is currently in its initial composition stage. The completed image will be fabricated on highly durable vinyl banner material and will be on display for the duration of the Crenshaw/LAX corridor construction. Mural installation is scheduled for the end of 2015.

Sound like a great creative outlet? We’re offering a new series of free workshops for local teens (ages 15-19) to design another construction phase mural—this time celebrating Leimert Park!  Teens will work with artworxLA and discover the landmarks, street names, and residents who have made this neighborhood special!

Workshop Schedule                                                              Location

1. Monday, August 10, 3-6pm                                      KAOS Network
2. Wednesday, August 12, 3-5pm                               4343 Leimert Boulevard
3. Monday, August 24, 3-5pm                                      Los Angeles, CA 90008

Contact Denise Gray at denise@artworxLA.org or 323-465-1404.  Or, just show up!

Stay tuned for future posts about more construction phase art workshops to be hosted in Inglewood.