Author: Malcolm MacLeod
A white van sat conspicuously in the quad on Thursday March 7 accompanied by loud music, glaring sunshine and paintbrushes. Two men sat by a table next to the van and encouraged passers-by to pick up a brush and begin decorating the van with the orange and black colors of Occidental College. Although initially hesitant, a small crowd of students began doodling different names and slogans on the mobile canvas, growing more bold with their illustrations as more and more students joined the crowd. A variety of imaginative illustrations sprawled across this unusual canvas, including depictions of Oswald the Tiger and recognizable characters from pop culture.
Invited by the Office of Community Engagement, artists David Russell and Roberto Del Hoyo brought their Mobile Mural Lab (MML) to campus in hopes of inspiring students, faculty and community members to come together as a group to do something both creative and constructive. The duo, who met during graduate school at The Otis College of Art and Design, hope to take their passion for art and education outside of the classroom and into the communities of Los Angeles. Offering community engagement projects that range in length from a few hours to a few weeks, Russell and Del Hoyo hope that by facilitating the creation of artistic installations, they can foster a sense of uniform pride throughout the communities they visit.
The goal is to stifle a wave of graffiti tags that have been popping up on top of professional murals throughout L.A. for years. “The Mobile Mural Lab serves as a means to teach artistic expression and encourage graffiti abatement,” Del Hoyo said.
“These taggers know that the murals were paid for, and won’t be taken down, so if they tag on top of the murals, their tags will have a better chance of staying up for a long time,” Russell said. The pair have been fighting this trend by traveling around the greater L.A. region, leading mural painting workshops that aim to teach artistic skills and encourage collaboration and communication between community members.
“The hope is that those tempted to tag public artwork will be deterred from doing so knowing they personally took part in its production alongside their friends and neighbors,” Del Hoyo said.
Del Hoyo hopes to expand this project. “For now, we want to create a work of art at every school in Los Angeles,” he said. “But we couldn’t consider ourselves very mobile if our goals were limited to one city. We hope to expand throughout the country one day.”
Their expansion of this project could open a greater understanding of community-based street art. More about the artistic duo’s mobile art studio can be found on their website www.mobilemurallab.com.
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