2 COLLEGES, ONE PROJECT ARTISTS CREATE BANNERS OF VISION.

GLENDALE - On a 150-foot-long canvas nailed to the walls of Glendale Community College art gallery, a half-dozen Latino artists started Thursday painting their impressions of the first year of the 21st century - visions irrevocably changed by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

When Jaime Rasch of West Hollywood was asked to participate in the Eye-Speak project, he envisioned an angel holding a celestial body against a pastel blue background - an image that symbolized peace and a new beginning.

But with the images of the two airplanes crashing into the World Trade Center vivid in his mind, Rasch decided to change his palette.

``Instead of pastel, it's going to be more bright, more chaotic - like when the planes hit the buildings,'' he said.

Poli Marichal, another West Hollywood artist working alongside Rasch, conceived her image of the 21st century in the wake of the terrorist acts, featuring a sun with tears and a tree of life in torment.

But there is also a message of hope in her depiction, which shows a woman marching forward with a face looking back at the crying sun and tree, but also facing the spectator and staring into the future.

``This figure will keep going. She is here in the present, but she is looking toward the future,'' said Marichal. ``We just need to keep going ahead with a positive attitude. Otherwise we are doomed.''

Organized by installation artist Jane Castillo and sculptor Joseph Beckles, Eye-Speak is intended to bring together Latino and African-American artists to create a sense of community.

While Latino artists are working at the Glendale campus, African-American artists are at work at Los Angeles Southwest College. Their work will be exhibited to the public Nov. 13 through Dec. 14 at both college galleries.

A live video hook-up at each campus allows artists to view each other at work.

Annabelle Aylmer, director of the Glendale College gallery, hopes the project will become a bonding experiences for the artists, who are not always recognized by mainstream institutions and often work in isolation.

``It's really for them to foster a sense that they belong to a family, to a group,'' Aylmer said. ``Out of that, they can gain strength to mingle (with other groups), share and come to an understanding.''

About 100 artists have registered to work on the project.

When the exhibit is over, Aylmer said the artists will put the canvases into large time vessels, their version of time capsules, and offer them for display as traveling museum exhibits.

Expected to cost $8,000 to $12,000, the project is funded by a variety of small grants from college organizations and other outside sources.

Lucila Villasenor Grijalva of Whittier celebrates diversity in her artwork, which features the faces of different ethnicities framed by a diamond-shaped Eye of God.

With Arab-Americans suffering racial attacks in the wake of the terrorist attacks, Grijalva hopes her work will inspire in spectators a sense of shared humanity with other ethnic groups.

``When you look at other people, you see yourself, the God in us and the spiritual connection that we are one,'' she said.

CAPTION(S):

2 photos

Photo:

(1) Latino artists Jaime Rasch, top, and Poli Marichal, both of West Hollywood, included in their paintings images suggested by the recent terrorist attacks.

(2) Poli Marichal depicted a woman, left, looking back at last week's disaster, looking into the future and staring at viewers.

Gus Ruelas/Staff Photographer