Graffiti used to solicit Sex

Graffiti used to solicit sex from teens
Calgary HeraldPublished: Tuesday, April 29, 2008
A Calgary man has admitted he wrote graffiti on a northeast park bench in an attempt to lure teenage girls to have sex with him.
Court heard Tyler Ernest Daniels, 28, wrote, "Need money? Teen girls for hire I pay $500.00 an hour ages 13-16 e-mail me . . ." then listed his address.
This message prompted a concerned citizen to contact police on May 17, 2006, according to an agreed statement of facts presented by defence lawyer Tonii Roulston and Crown prosecutor Jenny Rees.
Undercover officers, posing as a 16-year-old girl, contacted the e-mail address and asked for more information. They received a reply the same day from Daniels, asking where she lived and how old she was.
He also requested a picture.
The officers and Daniels corresponded several times during the next six weeks, with the officers continuing to pose as a 16-year-old girl.
Daniels offered $500 in exchange for sexual acts. He also promised he would arrange a hotel room and meet the teen there, and would provide drink, cigarettes or drugs.
He promised more money with increased time, in addition to gifts such as clothing and jewelry.
It was determined on June 2, 2006, the e-mails were coming from the same Internet provider address at the Calgary Public Library. Detectives were later able to confirm Daniels had been sending the e-mails.
Daniels arranged to meet the so-called teen on July 23 at a hotel and said he would give her $200 for sex, but the meeting never occurred. Daniels was arrested on Nov. 27 and charged.
Provincial court Judge Terry Semenuk will hear sentencing arguments on July 21.

Banksy latest comment on Big Brother

dailymail.co.uk — Banksy pulled off an audacious stunt to produce what is believed to be his biggest work yet in central London.The secretive graffiti artist managed to erect three storeys of scaffolding behind a security fence despite being watched by a CCTV camera. Then, during darkness and hidden behind a sheet of polythene, he painted this comment on Big Brother
Graffiti 2.0: Gone by Morning
Monday, Apr. 14, 2008 By S. JAMES SNYDER

Artists James Powderly and Evan Roth recently went on a daring graffiti mission. The goal? Tagging New York's Brooklyn Bridge. They waited for rush hour to die down and tried to be as incognito as people milling around bridges can be in this post-Sept. 11 world. Then, the duo fixed their crosshairs firmly on the bridge's underside, and started etching out dozens — maybe hundreds — of tags on one of its massive supports. They held still as a police boat floated under the bridge. Later, they allowed passersby to pick up the equipment and try it for themselves. Yet, the next morning, there was nary a sign that Powderly or Roth — nor their towering graffiti art — had ever been there.
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While most graffiti crews use spray paint to mark buildings and urban infrastructure, Roth and Powderly, the artists behind the Graffiti Research Lab, have perfected a unique form of temporary high-tech graffiti they call laser tagging that utilizes a laser pointer in lieu of paint, a projector in place of a spray. Instead of hitting dark subway tunnels and back alleys, they turn their attention to public places such as skyscrapers and monuments. A growing legion of fans turn out regularly to witness live demonstrations of their light shows (see video of their latest graffiti missions), but most log on en masse to watch videos of the events on such sites as YouTube and GraffitiResearchLab.com. A few hundred have even downloaded the needed computer code and instructions — something the "open-source" artists encourage people to do — to replicate Powderly and Roth's art in cities around the world. As a result of their soaring online popularity, the two artists have been sought out by a number of prominent curators in the art world — most recently by those at the Museum of Modern Art in New York — who see in their digital etchings a convergence of street art, graffiti art and urban cinema.
"The basic idea for laser tag was to create free-speech machines — to find ways of helping people say things at a scale and in a place where you normally have people controlling speech," Powderly says. "Doing it in an art museum was never the intent. Some days we think it's an art project, but other days it seems like an activism project, bringing together hackers and engineers."
The artists started laser tagging in earnest only a year ago; they devised the basic concept while art fellows at Eyebeam, an art and technology center in New York where Powderly and Roth refined their open-source technology. The system is simple: The duo will locate an appropriate building or structure (avoiding buildings with windows to prevent any accidental laser-eye injuries) and aim the projector at the surface; with each flick of the laser pointer, the computer software registers a streak of light (see the equipment). The artists have pointed their projectors at everything from bridges in New York City to miniature pyramids in Italy, high-rises in Hong Kong and snow-covered mountains just a few miles away from the Sundance Film Festival in Utah. Video of their work can be seen until May 12 in the current MoMA exhibit "Design and the Elastic Mind," an exhibition that kicked off with a live Graffiti Research Lab demonstration at the opening night reception.
"The best part was they agreed to let us have a really large guest list, so we invited 100 people, and put every graffiti writer we've ever worked with on the list, bringing them into the MoMA," Roth says. "When graffiti writers are arrested, it's at the judge's discretion what they are charged with, depending on whether they were acting as vandals or misguided artists. And by inviting all these people to MoMA, now if they ever get arrested, they can point to this video and say that of course they're artists, they've been featured by one of the country's most prominent institutions."
As evidenced by those unlikely guests at the MoMA opening — some of whom used the occasion to digitally spray comments mocking both the opening night crowd and the institution itself — the GRL seems to be inhabiting two worlds simultaneously. Powderly has called his laser tag device a "weapon of mass defacement." But their light art disappears with flip of a power switch, making it not necessarily illegal in some municipalities. "We talk about graffiti a lot," Roth says, "People view graffiti differently, some think of graffiti as an end design, but others think of it as an action, and by graffiti going online, you can see the action in progress."
"People say that we're high-tech," Powderly chimes in, "But I can't find a moment where [graffiti] wasn't high-tech. If you look back, you had spray cans — this form of technology that was a little too new to be considered an art form — and this billion-dollar transportation system that taggers used to spread their art. It's not all that different from laser pointers, a new technology, and this immense infrastructure that you find in urban areas."

Juneau Police need help in combating Graffiti

Graffiti popping up in Juneau
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - Juneau police are looking for help in combating graffiti, which seems to be popping up all over Alaska's capital city.
Police say graffiti started showing up more frequently in the downtown area, but has since spread citywide. The department's Cindee Brown-Mills says the graffiti contributes to lost revenue, reduced retail sales, and declines in property value.
Officials say catching the vandals in the act is difficult at best. And Brown-Mills says there are no city ordinances currently in place that address the prompt removal of graffiti from vandalized property.
Police are advising property owners to remove graffiti as soon as possible to avoid being a target for more vandalism.

Graffiti is only Dangerous in the Minds of three type of people

By Lisa Bang, Ellis Calvin and Helenmary Sheridan
Art, wrote Tolstoy, is not merely an aesthetic pleasure but an essential means of communication between human beings. An artwork draws the viewer into a dialogue with both the artist and with every person who has experienced the same artwork; this is especially true for literature and the performing arts, which continually reenact the process of their construction through the temporal experience of reading and viewing a performance. Visual art, on the other hand, is a less dynamically interactive medium: a completed piece is a record of statements made, and it is the viewer’s task to respond to what is offered. It is also a more isolating medium. Paintings are individual objects, privately owned; even mass-produced prints are each single-viewer objects, while a story or song can be shared.
Graffiti art breaks these general rules of visual art. Painted on public walls, owned by no one and everyone, graffiti invites reactions from other artists; it boasts of its creation in the most inaccessible and illegal spots and shouts the name of its creators. Graffiti art makes every surface a potential canvas and extends the right to view art beyond art owners and museum-goers. Even a simple tag, a name written without style or elaboration, makes an artistic statement: I am here, and I will make art.
This subversive spirit of graffiti doesn’t need to be destructive, but it is confrontational. Graffiti takes back the urban landscape by force, painting gray cement with bright colors and bold names. It is an art form for change and an art form for beauty; as the British graffiti artist Banksy writes, “Graffiti is only dangerous in the mind of three types of people: politicians, advertising executives, and graffiti writers.”
At a distance, the intersection of 36th and Albany looks like a typical industrial cluster of concrete and broken glass. Approaching the intersection we step over paint cans, whiskey bottles, and cigarette butts—byproducts of graffiti—like scraps leftover from cooking. Called the “Aerosoul Walls,” the graffiti covers four sides of the Crawford Steel Company, the trucks parked along it, and the concrete walls behind, parallel to 36th Street. This is where we meet Nino “tselone” Rodriguez and Nicky Dieter, veterans of the Chicago Graffiti scene.
Rodriguez has been emptying paint cans onto walls since 1984, at the age of 11, and Dieter since 1994. Rodriguez got started as a graffiti writer through his brother and through the book “Subway Art,” published in 1984 about graffiti in New York. New York and Philadelphia are widely considered the settings of the genesis of modern graffiti, developing alongside hip-hop. Graffiti, in fact, is one of the four commonly held elements of hip-hop, along with breakdancing (b-boying), DJing, and emceeing.
Graffiti flourished first in the ‘60s in Philadelphia and New York, back when the cities had limited resources to combat it. Early artists produced large-scale drawings, or “bombings,” on subway trains, making themselves known throughout the boroughs. As the art proliferated, writers began to differentiate their styles to gain recognition; the goal was no longer to “tag” as many locations as possible, but rather to produce intricate designs that people could distinguish from the fray. By the ‘70s, most of the standards of the art form had been set, from wildstyles (intricate pieces involving complex calligraphy and detailed backgrounds) to throw-ups (quick pieces involving few colors). The galleries took notice in earnest in the ‘80s, and “Subway Art” was published, further publicizing the phenomenon.
It’s unclear when and how graffiti began in Chicago. “One theory,” says Rodriguez, “is that Hate [a graffiti writer], from New York, came over to Chicago and started tagging here, using his New York name.” Some other progenitors in Chicago include DZine, Scene, Rome, Vandal, and Angel of the Artistic Bombing Crew (ABC). Rodriguez’s brother learned his techniques from Hate, and it was passed down to Rodriguez. Young Rodriguez read “Subway Art” when it came out, and learned from that as well. Writing graffiti kept him out of trouble—if it weren’t for graffiti, says Rodriguez, “I would have probably been in prison or something.”
The underground nature of graffiti, and the easy initiation, means that its members are not organized. While Rodriguez either knows personally or has heard of most of the top artists in the area, he says that graffiti doesn’t exist as a community here, perhaps owing to the subversive nature of the art and the autonomy of its adherents. However, most graffiti, according to Rodriguez, is about “communicating with your peers”—other graffiti writers. “I always approach with a sense of respect,” states Rodriguez, and there are certain codes that writers must follow. For one, it is extremely disrespectful to cover up a work with another of lesser quality. “The point is to put something there that’s better than before,” explains Dieter. Better works, therefore, tend to last longer. Likewise, to mimic a great graffiti writer’s style is frowned upon. When Dieter mentions another writer who took on Hate’s style and name after his death, Rodriguez responds with disgust: “That’s not right.” One should create something new. Graffiti wars don’t usually turn violent, unless it is gang-related. Writers sometimes start wars online, ragging on others’ styles. This sometimes culminates in challenges where writers try to outdo each other in the quality of their work. This is usually not conversational, as in bathroom stalls; the writers go off to different places, creating their works away from the influence of their rivals.
When Rodriguez and Dieter speak to each other about the art on the wall, one can understand about as much of the conversation as when art historians converse in front of a Monet. Taggers become expert at recognizing different styles, from the thickness of the lines to the shading of the letters. “You can really see how someone’s using a can,” explains Rodriguez. Dieter says, “In general, [the writer’s] style comes from their style of signature … This is all based on the shape and movement of it.” Beginners tend to use simpler lettering styles, developing complexity with time. Through this process, says Rodriguez, “each individual create[s] their own identity.” Some pieces use darker colors and themes—one piece at 36th and Albany shows black hills against a blood-red sky. “I like my art dark,” Rodriguez asserts, “one of my names used to be Hades.” Other pieces are happier, with lots of colors and less angular script. Rodriguez points at a colorful fifteen-foot-wide section. “That’s fresh,” he evaluates. “That looks almost like L.A. style,” adds Dieter.
L.A. style tends to contain more colors, and taggers there tend to have more ties to the gang scene—one who belongs to both is called a “tagbanger.” Graffiti in L.A. is often used to mark rival gang territory. In both L.A. and Philadelphia, graffiti tends to stay up longer than in Chicago or New York, due to efforts by the latter cities’ local governments to “buff,” or get rid of, graffiti. Rahmaan Statik, a Chicago artist who’s been tagging since 1993, recalls the Daley-initiated crackdown of the early ‘90s: “The mayor actually created a ‘graffiti squad,’ a separate division of the Chicago Police force, just to go against graffiti … I’ve heard legensds of particular officers arresting up to 300 [graffiti] writers in one month.” Dieter recalls talking to a graffiti writer from Philadelphia who didn’t see the point of painting something if it wouldn’t stay up. “In Philly, if no one sees it, it doesn’t matter,” says Dieter. Writers with that mentality wouldn’t flourish here in Chicago. The authorities have covered pieces with thick brown paint in as little as two hours, and works often don’t last more than a few months. The enforcement is much more strenuous on the North Side: “There’s like two walls there, if that,” Dieter comments. “People on the South Side tend to appreciate it more, and there’s more space to do it, too,” adds Rodriguez.
It is illegal to buy or possess spray paint in Chicago (though this is circumvented by online purchases and trips out of the city), and causing more than $500 worth of damage is a felony. Spraying a mailbox will make it a federal matter.“A number of writers were becoming frustrated with their work getting buffed. So, they came up with alternative ways that it couldn’t get buffed,” explains Statik. This included different formulations of spray paint, usually imported from Europe. Some abandoned graffiti altogether; “Around ’96, when it became a felony, a lot of people stopped doing graffiti and started rapping,” says Statik. This situation has led to remaining Chicago graffiti writers being more focused on process than product and to increased dependence on photography to make the art last. Dieter describes his day job at a corporation as confining. “I’m in this closed space, and it sucks to be creative in that condition,” he complains. Through graffiti, one can claim public space, make oneself known. In a way, graffiti is cathartic, allowing people to express themselves in a world where opportunities for creativity seem scarce. It also allows one to go at one’s own pace—Rodriguez estimates that some of the pieces on the Crawford Steel Company must have taken twenty to fifty hours. The underground, subversive nature of graffiti strengthens its appeal as well.
But given the danger, expense, and time commitment, why do people graffiti at all? Many people do quit after a few years in favor of other mediums. Angel Silva, for example, has migrated to doing more tattoo work. Others exhibit in galleries and expand their hobby into a business, selling their own brands of spray paint, action figures, T-shirts, and other merchandise. Montana Colors and Monster Colors are both spray paint companies founded by graffiti writers. Others end up working for corporations such as Axe, Coca-Cola, Hummer, and Sprint to create street advertisements. Some can even afford to travel internationally to tag different cities. Like other artists who migrate from the underground to the mainstream, such individuals are often dubbed sell-outs by people that are left behind. At the same time, “selling out” is a way to make a previously expensive hobby into a career. In fact, graffiti writers are often less concerned about the money changing hands than about the potential effects of commercialization on the culture. “What happens when [the aesthetic] becomes played out?” asks Statik—when the freshness and subversion that previously made graffiti appealing are gone? But at the same time, Statik admits to selling out, and Rodriguez seems proud of the fact that his moniker, tselone, is a registered trademark. “I would love to take it international,” Rodriguez enthuses. “I’ll be doing this for as long as I have two hands, and then I’ll start using my toes.”

We Drive pass it every day, Graffiti

We drive past it every day and don’t give it much more than a “tsk, tsk.”
Those strange, almost foreign looking splashes of spray paint. Graffiti.
You don’t have to drive far too come across it. Most municipal property have it somewhere, and many private businesses as well – the back of the local grocery store, the electrical box in the park, the pump house at the water reservoir, the sides of downtown businesses.
Schools, perhaps because of their very nature, are particularly hard-hit targets, and not just for graffiti. Broken windows and other malicious, senseless damage are also commonplace.
“Tsk, tsk.” It’s petty crime, small potatoes though, right? Well, think again. Simcoe County District School Board trustees learned this week that when it was all added up, vandalism to schools cost the board (and ultimately taxpayers) more than $1 million in 2006 and 2007, and will likely cost the same again this year.
Those are some pretty pricy small potatoes.
It’s a figure that made trustees decide to revisit the issue of installing security cameras at Simcoe County schools, and rightly so. And while the cameras might not end the problem outright, they certainly would be a deterrent and a good start.
One person’s art is another’s trash, and graffiti has been referred to as ‘street art.’ But even if it is, that doesn’t give the ‘artist’ the right to use any space, private or public, as a canvas.
Trustee Diane Firman said it best when she said schools and the board need to work with the entire community to deal with vandalism.
“It’s not a school problem, it’s not a police problem. It’s everyone’s problem.”
We all need to just stop treating it as small potatoes.

Graffiti clean-up kits available in Reno

Graffiti cleanup kits available through Reno Police Department
Graffiti cleanup kits are being made available to Reno residents to help erase and combat graffiti vandalism.
The kits are available at the Reno Police Department at 455 East Second Street, and Reno Police Department field offices at the following locations during regular business hours:
· North field office, 10555 Stead Boulevard in Stead.
· Central field office, 199 East Plaza at the Bowling Stadium downtown.
· South field office, 3905 Neil Road.
The kits are sponsored through donations from Reno Paint Mart and were assembled recently by about a dozen juveniles and adults at the Jan Evans Juvenile Detention Facility. The kits are in self-contained cans and include T.S.W. Graphite Remover, goggles, a cleaning pad, gloves and instructions to help cleanup most graffiti vandalism.
Reno residents can help fight graffiti vandalism by simply reporting it when they see it. A call to the City of Reno's call center, RenoDirect at 334-INFO, giving the location of the graffiti vandalism will result in abatement by the Reno Police Department's graffiti abatement team.
And, individuals with information about those responsible for graffiti vandalism can become eligible for cash rewards when the information they provide to Secret Witness leads to the arrest and conviction of those involved in the crime of graffiti vandalism.
The Secret Witness program offers rewards of $250.00 to $1,000.00 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the crime of graffiti. The program was developed at the urging of the Reno City Council through the Reno Police Department. Reno police officers have worked with the Secret Witness organization and community organizations and businesses to underwrite the reward program. Information on graffiti vandalism can be provided to Secret Witness by individuals on an anonymous basis by calling Secret Witness at (775) 322-4900.
The partnership with the Secret Witness Program is part of the Reno Police Department's anti-graffiti strategic plan approved by the Reno City Council in 2005. The plan has four major components that include community education and engagement, enforcement and abatement activities, a communications plan and networking across boundaries. Each has numerous sub-activities designed to maximize use of existing resources and engage the community in fighting graffiti vandalism.
The crime of graffiti vandalism has a significant negative impact on the quality of life for residents, as well as negative business impacts by contributing to blight, fear and often is associated with or leads to other criminal activity.

Worm to pay 1,164.00 in Restitution

Graffiti vandal avoids jail, must pay $1,164 in damages
By Matt Gryta - News Staff Reporter Updated: 04/07/08 11:41 AM
Matthew "Worm" Swan, a notorious graffiti vandal, today was spared a jail term but was ordered to pay $1,164 in restitution to the City of Buffalo, the Peace Bridge Authority and a private property owner for damage he and two cohorts caused last year.
State Supreme Court Justice John J. Michalski also ordered Swan, 21, of Henrietta Avenue, to perform 500 hours of community service and warned that he faces a lengthy state prison term if he persists "in creating this type of blight in our community."
Michael J. Poretta, Swan's attorney, unsuccessfully argued that the 500 hours of community service is "excessive" because his client just started a full-time job and has been accepted in Buffalo State College's criminal justice program for the September semester.
But in sentencing Swan on his felony criminal mischief plea, the judge told Swan "you're going to have to climb out of the hole you dug for yourself."
Swan, who used the graffiti tag "Worm," declined comment both during and after the court session.
Graffiti prosecutor Thomas D. Kubiniec said accomplices Jacob Biondo, 19, of Hinman Avenue and Christopher Parwulski, 20, of Calumet Place are scheduled to be sentenced Friday on their felony criminal mischief pleas.
The three were arrested by Buffalo police last July 3 with spray paint still on their hands and clothing. They were charged with causing more than $3,300 damage to a store at Massachusetts and Niagara streets, to a city water intake station, to a Peace Bridge support beam and to a West Side utility box. Each defendant is being required to pay one-third of the damages

Todays Photo's by Soo6060 !!!!!!!!

Female Graffiti Taggers Busted

Reaction to Graffiti Arrests
Wilkes-Barre police said Nora Rynkeiwicz, seen here at her arrest Thursday, is a self-proclaimed neo-Nazi.
By Sarah Buynovsky
People in Luzerne County are still buzzing after two young women were charged with spray painting a synagogue in Wilkes-Barre.
Police said they painted the doors with swastikas and hateful words but thankfully the suspects were working alone.
Nora Rynkeiwicz, 18, and her 17-year-old friend are charged with what Wilkes-Barre police call a disgusting crime. They are accused of spray painting swastikas and hateful words on the Ohav Zedek Synagogue on South Franklin Street.
The markings were removed Thursday but people are still talking about what happened, and the fact that two females are charged. "I think you stereotype the type of people you think would do those things and to see a couple of young females do it is even more disturbing," said Joe Wilk of Wilkes-Barre.
"It's shocking because you wouldn't think that a girl would have that kind of mind set to do anything like that," said Sean Madden of Dunmore.
Kyle Kutney of Larksville said he graduated from Wyoming Valley West High School and knew Nora Rynkeiwicz, a fellow student and the person police said was most responsible for the spray painting crime.
"I didn't think she was, you know, she would ever do something like that to a Jewish synagogue," he said.
Police said they are also shocked two women were responsible.
Rynkeiwicz has a web site covered with swastikas. Investigators said she is a self-described neo-Nazi but not a member of an organized hate group.
"There are a lot of kids who are into this. They're not all this outward, thankfully and everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but she didn't seem to be connected in a group with anyone. Luckily it wasn't organized," said Wilkes-Barre Detective Ron Foy.
Wilkes-Barre police said there are Nazi and white supremacy groups around but, they added, they aren't too public and they don't allow women in leadership roles.
"Traditionally hate groups do let women in. A lot of them are exclusive to men, though. I don't have any information that she was in a hate group. She probably aspired to be in one or to start here one," Detective Foy explained.
Police said they know groups like the Keystone State Skinheads have been passing out and posting fliers in the Scranton/Wilkes-Barre area. They added it is a male only group and while Nora Rynkeiwicz wanted to be a member, she could not.

Alfredo Diaz Flores dead at 82

A brush with inspiration
Even tagging crews respected Alfredo's masterpieces
By Dennis McCarthy, Columnist

Alfredo Diaz Flores works on a mural at Chatsworth Park... (Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer)

One of the greatest artists to ever pick up a paintbrush in Los Angeles died last week at 82. His name was Alfredo Flores.
His works were never displayed in the Guggenheim or Getty, never made it inside any of Los Angeles' finer art galleries.
That wasn't Alfredo's style.
He wanted his art to breathe and be available free to the public, 24/7.
So Alfredo painted public walls and private buildings, in alleys covered in gang graffiti. He painted beautiful scenes of God and country, of patriotism and tradition.
You'd think gang members would be angry about having their "artwork" painted over. You'd think they might retaliate and deface Alfredo's work - but they didn't.
They didn't touch his murals of church missions or the raising of the American flag at Iwo Jima.
That's because it was an unwritten code among street gangs in this city that Alfredo's walls were off-limits for tagging.
He began painting his historical and religious murals in the 1970s when he was still working as a grocery clerk. Art was his passion, but selling groceries paid the bills and helped him raise three children - Annette, Richard and Arthur.
He painted more than 80 murals in East Los Angeles, and 50 others are scattered on walls throughout the San Fernando Valley. All of them are free of graffiti.
"In this neighborhood, that's saying something," John Gerado said in 2002 when I stopped by to see a 40-foot-long

historical mural Alfredo had painted in 1979 on a wall outside Gerado's Canoga Park radiator shop.
All the surrounding walls were covered in graffiti except for the one with Alfredo's mural. In 22 years, it remained untouched, except for Alfredo stopping by every 10 years or so to touch it up.
"The only way you're going to stop taggers is to give them something meaningful to think about, something they can respect," Flores told me on the drive over to a graffiti-ridden alley in Arleta later that day.
A friend from church had asked him to take a look and see what he could do. The local homeowners would paint over the graffiti a couple of times a week, but the taggers would return at night and put up their gang slogans again.
Alfredo and a couple of young muralists he was tutoring spent the next few weeks painting murals of Mount Rushmore, an eagle with a U.S. flag in its mouth and Jesus walking on water.
Even taggers have respect for heritage, he said. For the old ways and past generations.
"There's a dignity to it, and leaving my murals alone is their way of showing it," Alfredo said at the time. "They'll tag both sides of a mural, but never the work itself."
A few months later, I drove down the alley to see how Alfredo's murals were doing. There wasn't a mark on them.
Once in a while, he would take his work inside, but there had to be a good reason.
Alfredo turned the walls at the children's sanctuary at Christ Community Church in Winnetka into murals, where he and longtime member Joe Siracusa were volunteer greeters for a decade.
Siracusa said his musical background and Alfredo's artistic background gradually drew them together - along with the fact that both liked to socialize.
"On a personal basis, he was just a source of spirituality to all of us," Siracusa said of Alfredo, who was also an ordained minister. "He was such a joy to work with, I can't tell you. He was such an uplifting person to the whole church."
Alfredo also turned the cold, institutional walls inside a county building - where 6,000 developmentally disabled people living in the Valley received help - into a breathtaking, colorful, 45-by-9-foot mural of the San Fernando Mission.
And he turned the stark waiting-room walls in children's hospitals and pediatric care units into happy playgrounds and colorful zoos.
"Making this city a more beautiful place to live, and bringing a smile to a child with his artwork, was Dad's passion," says Art Flores, his son.
Daughter Annette Tachet recalls her father painting portraits and landscapes on canvas before turning to murals, and says all six of his grandchildren have an artistic flair.
"He taught me a lot ... particularly that your dreams can be achieved no matter how big they are - that they're possible," she says.
Tachet says her father left school before eighth grade to work 16-hour days to help support his parents.
"But that love, the dream of art, he never let it die. No matter how hard he worked, throughout life ... he kept that as his passion."
And she says her father's capacity to try to reach out and help others transcended his public artwork.
"He just had such a love for people that I've just never seen in anybody," she says. "He made himself available to people whether it was a stranger on the street or his own family that he deeply loved and cared for."
That's why more than 500 people crammed into Calvary Chapel Mid Valley in Encino on Saturday for more than two hours.
To say goodbye to one of the greatest artists to ever pick up a paintbrush in this city.

Graffiti Mural in L.A.

L.A. Wants to Whitewash Graffiti Mural
By RAQUEL MARIA DILLON

It was a graffiti artist's dream come true: 10,000 square feet of concrete and a permit to paint. Families brought their kids to watch as hundreds of muralists, using their own materials and working for free, sprayed technicolor shades on the steep banks of an ugly, manmade riverbed.
Not everyone was pleased, however, with the results of the civic-minded effort, which had the city's blessing but has rekindled debates over whether Los Angeles County should condone a practice it pays millions to combat.
Some politicians protested that parts of the mural are obscene and have attracted gang-related tags in a city where graffiti already mars homes, sidewalks and buildings. The county has given organizers until Wednesday to whitewash the mural, and neither side is backing down.
"It would be beautiful if the river went back to its natural state and was actually a river and a park," said Alex Poli, a graffiti artist and gallery owner known as "Man One." "But right now we have concrete walls, so the next best thing is to beautify it with art."
The site in question, a concrete canyon where a tributary, Arroyo Seco, meets the Los Angeles River, is surrounded by an industrial neighborhood on the edge of downtown and, like most of the river's 51 miles, is hemmed in by artificial banks to control floods.
To obtain the permit from a maze of local governments and regulatory agencies, Poli enlisted the Friends of the Los Angeles River, an environmental organization that works with the multiple agencies that control the river.
Poli organized the public art project on a sunny weekend in September, and the artists created a canvas full of bold, abstract graffiti script and some edgy imagery: a sorcerer in a hoodie sweatshirt conjuring a spray can, an angel cradling a man, a pig in a suit smoking marijuana, the Hollywood sign in flames and scantily clad women.
County Supervisor Gloria Molina promptly demanded the mural's removal, complaining that some of the images were inappropriate for a public art display near where city planners want to build bike paths. The environmental group's mission is to protect the river, and "this seemed like an odd way to do it," said Roxane Marquez, a Molina spokeswoman.
Marquez said Poli hasn't kept his promise to organize a volunteer touchup crew to keep the surrounding concrete pristine and free of gang tags and extra graffiti.
Poli said the politicians don't understand the difference between graffiti and graffiti art, which is exhibited in museums and galleries around the world.
"People still have trouble considering it art because we use a spray can," he said.
In mid-October, some of the murals were whitewashed without warning. Molina and the Department of Public Works denied involvement, but in December, Molina got the county Board of Supervisors to pass an emergency motion giving the Friends of the Los Angeles River 90 days to paint over the murals or pay up to $70,000 for their removal.
County crews removed about 60 million square feet of graffiti in 2006 at a cost of about $32 million, county officials have said.
The Friends group stands by the idea of having art by the river, spokeswoman Shelly Backlar said. But the organization, which is scrambling to rebuild its stock with the county and the agencies that supervise the river, concedes some of what the artist put into the mural might not belong there.
"It's their permit and their event, and we've been pulled in because of the work that we do," Backlar said. "It's not what we thought it would be."
City Councilman Ed Reyes, who originally supported Poli's project and authorized the permit, said he regrets that decision because he believes the art has attracted gang members, who have added their tags to the riverbed walls.
The graffiti "spilled out of the river channel, into the sidewalks, onto the handrails, into buildings," Reyes said. "Before it was a neutral place, but now we have clear indicators that rival gangs and taggers are showing up there."
More tagging has steadily accumulated at the Arroyo Seco site since last fall. Other artists have primed their own pieces of concrete and added to the project, extending the murals a few dozen yards.
Poli condemns taggers but sees the more ambitious work as copycats — students learning from the masters. Tagging increased after parts of the mural were whitewashed, including offensive images directed at Molina and county officials.
"The county needs to wake up," said Kalen Ockerman, who paints under the name "Mear One." "The rest of the world is busy paying kids to do this stuff," on album covers and billboards.
Poli considered painting over the murals, "because of all the grief." He's also talking to lawyers, hoping that a strongly worded letter will stop the county from billing the environmental group or his gallery.
"We did nothing illegal and we had permits," he said. "We're in the business of creating art, not destroying it."