EXTREME MAKEOVER TAGGERS USING L.A.'S PUBLIC MURALS TO SHOWCASE THEIR GRAFFITI, RUINING YEARS OF ARTISTS' WORK.

Byline: Story by SUSAN ABRAM -- Photos by EVAN YEE -- Daily News

SILVER LAKE - Near a bridge downtown, Ernesto de la Loza painted his vision of hope and despair in Los Angeles.

There is the woman who symbolizes the City of Angels, her hair flowing behind her and disappearing into her angel's wings. She peers over the outstretched arms of a man, one side of his body strong and muscular, the other side skeletal as he struggles with the allure of drugs.

But along the bottom of de la Loza's 100-foot mural on Silver Lake Boulevard, crews of taggers eager for quick fame have used the work as their canvas.

Their names, scrawled in black and blue and silver spray paint, signify deadly games of street combat and codes of honor. And they convey the exact opposite message of the mural's intent.

``It's devastating,'' de la Loza said on a recent day as he surveyed the damage to his mural and traced one of the tagger's names with his finger as if it were a scar. ``These are my babies, and they are destroying it.''

Titled ``Under the Bridge'' after the Red Hot Chili Peppers' song of the same name, de la Loza's work is one of thousands of Los Angeles' public murals. It also is among hundreds that have fallen victim to vandalism.

The names and obscenities that mar the city's famed murals are evidence of the escalating rivalry among Los Angeles' tagging crews, police say. But beyond the violence that has emerged as a result of the tagging -- beyond the acts of disrespect for public art that can be demoralizing to a community -- it is raising some hard questions about how to best preserve the murals and who should be in charge.

``At one point in time, the murals were respected and provided a way for chronic communities to prevent kids from going into gangs, but now the respect isn't there for those murals,'' said Los Angeles police Officer Moises Ramirez, who works the community Tagger Task Force housed at the Van Nuys division.

`The world is their canvas'

More than 150 tagging crews roam the San Fernando Valley alone, Ramirez said, with members as young as 12. They do it for notoriety and respect because ``they feel they are getting an identity they don't get at home. They say the world is their canvas.''

The LAPD offers a $1,000 reward for information leading to the conviction of a vandal, but Ramirez said there are no specific city laws against tagging a mural.

And police say tagging can lead to worse behavior, such as truancy, drugs and violence. In October, 18-year-old Walter Lopez of North Hollywood was gunned down by a crew of taggers in a drive-by shooting.

Lopez had sprayed his tag, ``Reefer,'' on a street where he often scrawled his nickname.

City officials want tougher laws against tagging, even suggesting that taggers be made to clean up their own handiwork.

Unresolved is the best way to restore the murals. Because of the extent of damage and the number of murals, the task may be overwhelming.

``Los Angeles, Mexico City, Berlin. Those are the cities people know for murals,'' said Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge. ``The vandalism is horrible to the artists. Those murals are very important for the artistic value of a community.''

Cleaning murals is complicated

Community leaders and artists question the mural-cleaning methods that will be used. Some murals are coated with wax, others with a more sophisticated permanent covering to protect them from the weather, smog and graffiti.

But if left for more than a week, the chemicals from the spray paint that taggers use can seep through the coating and into the concrete.

Artist de la Loza said he has been told by the city that he must maintain his own murals. He has painted more than 30.

``They wanted these murals, and now they say I have to clean them myself,'' he said. ``I don't have that time.''

The state Department of Transportation oversees about 50 murals along freeways in its Los Angeles district, including the famed 1984 Olympic-themed murals along the Harbor Freeway.

The agency came under fire at one point for painting over the graffiti, which then covered large chunks of the original artwork.

Restoration process proves almost futile

Last year, Caltrans spent $1.7 million to restore some of the pieces, but the process proved almost futile, said Caltrans spokeswoman Judy Gish.

``Before we could even have the completion ceremony, there was tagging,'' Gish said.

There are other problems as well.

``We have to deal with freeway closures, environmental issues of paint washing into the drainage system,'' she said. ``Graffiti is not just something that can be washed off.''

Muralist Judy Baca, who co-founded The Social and Public Art Resource Center in 1976, said her group has never found funding to help clean up the murals.

Baca's own mural contribution to the 1984 Olympics has been defaced, then parts were painted over to cover the graffiti.

Baca also is known in the Valley for ``The Great Wall,'' a half-mile mural she created along the Los Angeles River that stretches through North Hollywood. More than 400 teenagers worked on the designs that took eight years to complete.

``While we were the mural capital of the world historically, I don't believe that anymore,'' Baca said. ``The biggest challenge is money, and parallel to that is freedom of expression.

``Look at Philadelphia, which receives $3 million for their mural programs annually. The take on art in Los Angeles is one in which public murals are not considered serious art.''

``The Great Wall'' is expected to undergo preservation, thanks to a $1.2 million grant Baca's organization received from the state.

And some say what the mural proved was that when children have a hand in contributing to public art, they are less likely to ruin the work.

`A form of self-validation'

``For the kids, painting a mural is a form of self-validation -- that they are important, that they are not just simply victims of a cold, sterile facility,'' said Carlos Loya, an arts teacher at Polytechnic High School in Reseda.

The high school is just one of a handful that offers instruction on mural painting. There are more than 20 murals around the campus.

Loya said he stresses the importance of public art -- from how cavemen etched their stories onto stone walls to the more contemporary movements in Los Angeles.

During the 1960s and '70s, local artists became inspired by those from the Mexican mural movement, like David Siqueiros, Diego Rivera and Jose Orozco.

Baca and de la Loza -- along with Kent Twitchell, Frank Romero, Alonzo Davis and the East Los Streetscapers -- were among those who emerged as the city's visual storytellers.

Capturing social movements, historical moments and local heroes with paint on concrete walls, the result was works that became known as ``The People's Art.''

The vandalism and the city's slow response to the problem has proved disheartening.

``I spent the best years of my life painting those murals,'' de la Loza said. ``If they say L.A. is a cultural destination, then I say, let's live up to that before all the creativity disappears.''

susan.abram(at)dailynews.com

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CAPTION(S):

5 photos

Photo:

(1 -- color) - Ernesto de la Loza

(2 -- color) Artist Ernesto de la Loza shows the graffiti that has covered most of his mural, titled ``Under the Bridge,'' along a Silver Lake street. He's been told by city officials that he's responsible for keeping his own murals -- he's painted dozens -- clean.

(3 -- color) Graffiti all but obliterates a mural along Sunset Boulevard, near Coronado Street, in Los Angeles. Taggers use the city's carefully painted murals as a broad canvas for their vandalism.

(4 -- color) Spray paint ruins an image in a Lemoyne Street mural. It's only one damaged by graffiti taggers who see their vandalism as art.

(5 -- color) Graffiti covers much of a mural on Lemoyne Street. L.A. has formed a task force to address the problem of vandal-plagued murals, but some artists worry that there'll be no money for cleanup.

Evan Yee/Staff Photographer