VENICE BEACH A group of onlookers stood intrigued, some squinting through the viewfinder of a camera, snapping away at the masterpiece taking shape before their eyes.
In front of them, with a spray can in tow, was Raul “Frame” Gamboa, a locally renown artist from Downtown Los Angeles, pondering his work, leaning in to touch up the mural he’d spent much of his Sunday creating.
It was an action repeated over and over last weekend throughout the graffiti pit — home of the famous Venice Beach Public Art Walls. Wearing paint-splattered clothes, the artists aimed their spray cans at their respective targets before taking a step back to reflect. Onlookers surrounded the artists, snapping pictures of the artists, who appeared oblivious to the world around them.
Spray cans, music, community and creative expression comprise the magical world revolving around a few small concrete walls on Venice Beach. It’s a colorful world continually threatened by the complaints of area residents weary of the illegal tagging that dots their neighborhood.
Many believe the beloved walls — a blank canvas for graffiti artists for decades — would have been torn down had it not been for a new restrictive permit system, implemented on June 3 by the city of Los Angeles to control the graffiti, both on the walls and in the neighborhood.
While several artists disagree with the new permit system, which restricts painting on the walls to weekends, most feel it’s better than the alternative, especially in a city where the number of public art walls has drastically decreased over the past few decades.
“It’s better than nothing,” said Mark Gons, who has been coming to the Venice Beach Public Art Walls since the 1980s.
The Venice Beach Graffiti Pit has long been a hotspot for tagging. Though graffi-ti was technically illegal, tagging in the pit was usually tolerated as artists had the freedom to express their creativity on the walls, said Mike Bonin, the chief of staff for Los Angeles Council member Bill Rosendahl, who represents Venice.
During the Venice Beach renovation in 1999, the nearby pavilion was demolished, as was a bathroom and several walls of the graffiti pit. In an effort to preserve the remaining walls of the ever-changing art-work, LA Council member Ruth Galanter drafted an agreement that would implement a permit system, later adopted by the city around 2001. The permit system brought In Creative Unity, a locally-based visual communications agency, to curate the space, creating order among the creative space.
The permit system later fell to the wayside, revoked in 2003.
Since that time, the Venice Public Art Walls have been a magnet for artists, fighting for space, mindful that the beach hosts one of the few remaining public art walls in the county.
The tight space has led to conflict in the past among artists, agitated that after they completed a work of art, another artist will come and paint right over the mural. It wasn’t an uncommon sight to see artists standing in line,waiting their turn to take a crack at the walls.
Artists soon learned to snap a picture of their murals soon after completing them, fully expecting someone else to paint right over.
“Once I paint, as long as I get my picture, I don’t care if it stays for 10 minutes of 10 days,” Gamboa said.
Gamboa is among the handful of Venice Beach Public Art Wall veterans, painting on the beach since the early 1980s. Today, Gamboa rarely visits Venice Beach, heading instead to more obscure locations where his artwork is likely to stay unaltered for a longer period of time.
Along with the increased traffic at the art walls came complaints from residents that their neighborhood was being tagged, blaming the walls for being a beacon to illegal painters and asking they be torn down. The complaints coincided with a proliferation of graffiti citywide, Bonin said.
To appease residents, and save the walls at the same time, the city of Los Angeles has since reenacted the permit program, thanks to Rosendahl’s office.
Under the new system, stricter than its predecessor, permitted artists can only work on the walls during daylight hours on the weekends and city holidays. Artists must also be over the age of 18 to use the spray-paint, as per safety regulations. The program is set to pilot for about six months, during which time In Creative Unity will curate the walls.
“We’re encouraging (artists under 18) to paint in graffiti-style if they like,” said Stash Molaski, of In Creative Unity. “There are ways to create satisfying art-work without spray-painting.”
The stipulation on kids is unpopular among some artists who say graffiti art on public spaces keeps the youth out of the streets, helping to prevent illegal tagging.
Many artists under 18 use private property to practice spray-painting, according to Gamboa, an advocate for more public art spaces. He credits public art space with helping keep him out of gangs as a youth.
Residents of the neighborhood immediately surrounding the Venice Public Art Walls, located on the beach near Windward Avenue, contend that illegal tagging has become a chronic problem over the past few years.
Rand Denny, the chairman of the neighborhood Graffiti Committee, carries the paint of every color used by the city in this neighborhood. With cans in hand, Denny roams the streets three times a week, painting over graffiti.
If there is one tag on a sidewalk on his street in the beginning of the week, it’ll be covered with more than 40 individual tags by the weekend, Denny said.
Many business owners and residents have threatened lawsuits against the city, believing the walls have invited everyone to roam through the neighborhood without “any sort of protection,” Denny said.
“If you walk four blocks in any direction (from the art walls), suddenly, the graffiti stops,” Denny said.
Denny hopes the new permit system will serve two purposes — to protect and elevate the quality of public art and protect the neighborhood.
The majority of the artists who come to the art walls are just that — artists, Gons said. It’s the few rotten apples in the bunch that spoils it for everyone.
There is an ongoing graffiti problem in the city of Santa Monica, according to Elaine Polacheck, the community maintenance director.
To combat illegal tagging, the city employs three full-time graffiti technicians, who paint over the illegal artworks and remove stickers from light posts and benches. One contractor focuses solely on the Pico Neighborhood.
“They end up removing 10,000 to 12,000 pieces of graffiti every year,” Polacheck said.
For the city’s beaches and parks, graffiti tends to be less of a problem, said Barbara Stinchfield, director of Community and Cultural Services.
“It tends to pop up and gets taken care of,” Stinchfield said. “It is unsettling when it does occur for the maintenance crew and people who work in facilities.”
The city of Santa Monica is almost devoid of public art spaces, with the exception of a few walls inside the Teen Center, constructed as part of the Virginia Avenue Park renovation two years ago.
One of the few public places for artist expression is a wall in the alley of the north parking lot at Santa Monica High School. In the 1990s, the student government at Samohi brokered a deal with the school district that allowed them access to the wall,said Oscar de la Torre, Board of Education Vice President and founder of the Pico Youth and Family Center.
A wall on Pacific Coast Highway was also, at one point, legalized for graffiti art.
“There’s a history of young people requesting and attaining support from public entities to display graffiti art,”de la Torre said.
In a room inside Virginia Avenue Park’s Teen Center, the walls have been covered with murals by teenagers and professional artists as part of a park program.
This special room of artistic freedom is affectionately dubbed the “loud space,” a place where teens were allowed to design as they pleased.
“It’s a very good way for kids to focus their energy on something that is not defacing public property,” said Carla Fantozzi, supervisor of the Community Services Program for the Teen Center.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on June 8, 2007. Read the original PDF.