Mobile Art Student Crew Keeps It Clean

Garfield the cat and a Hillhouse Academics Smurf popped up on two electrical boxes less than a mile apart — as local high schoolers hustled to paint over profanity-laden graffiti in city parks and street corners, in an effort to beautify New Haven this summer. 

A trio of New Haven students traveled the city in an art van on Tuesday with their Youth@Work facilitator as part of that summer project.

The five-week youth employment program Youth@Work is run by the city’s Youth and Recreation Department. It offers New Haveners ages 14 to 21 opportunities to gain paid entry-level work experience throughout July through partnerships with dozens of local nonprofits and community programs. 

From 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. five days a week, Hillhouse seniors Siulmarie Santana and Bianca Gomez and Co-op senior Johana Perez are driven around by former Hillhouse art teacher Rebecca LeQuire in search of graffiti that needs covering or touching up. 

So far this summer the small group has painted light poles, electrical boxes, Edgewood Park’s bridge, and flower planters. Art themes have included Super Mario and Pac-Man in recent weeks.

The mobile art crew is in its second year of employing city youth to beautify public spaces around town. The idea came from Youth and Rec Deputy Director of Operations Felicia Shashinka, who tapped LeQuire to lead the summer program. 

After packing the nine-seater van with ladders, paint cans, spray paint, and brushes, the group embarked on their daily drive around town to spot graffiti, park, cover it up, and repeat. 

The group’s first stop was just a block from the city’s parks department building on Edgewood Avenue. LeQuire pulled over at Santana’s request and the group walked down to an underpass on Edgewood’s walking trail. 

Santana told the group that she frequently rides her bike on the trail and suggested they put up more family-friendly art on the walls of the bridge that are currently covered in dozens of graffiti tags. ​“Do you think it’s scary for a kid coming down here?” LeQuire asked. 

The trio agreed that the underpass covered with profanity and non-cohesive art could use a repaint. They each decided to look up art to inspire what they might ultimately put up in the underpass as part of their largest project of the summer. 

“Things like this don’t need to stay. That’s not art,” Santana said, pointing to a tag reading ​“fuck it, fuck you.” Before leaving, Santana and Perez used orange spray paint to cover up the words. 

The group then filed back into the art van and drove around Dixwell searching for smaller projects to complete Tuesday. The students requested that LeQuire ask about whether they can paint over tags on bus shelters around town. 

“Where do you want to land?” LeQuire asked while driving the van with the AC on high to combat the 90-degree heat. 

The group next parked at Scantlebury Park to touch up a black electrical box covered in white tags. Santana immediately suggested to paint Garfield the cat on the box because it’s a recognizable character for youth and adults. 

The group approved and Santana got to work creating Garfield’s shape with orange spray paint and then filled in smaller details with black paint. Meanwhile Gomez and Perez touched up a free little library box’s white doors with paint and then added some color to a park trash can. 

LeQuire covered up graffiti on the basketball hoop post with blue paint.

The group considered painting a silver electrical box nearby but decided not to, to avoid inviting future tagging to the currently clean box.

Hillhouse’s Bianca Gomez, 16, joined LeQuire and her fellow artists in doing the beautification project last year as well. She said so far she’s enjoyed getting to be paid for doing her daily hobby of art while also making her city cleaner. ​“We get to use our creativity and imagination,” she said, adding that the group’s daily presence around the city’s parks also aims to give youth a sense of what careers in the arts could look like. 

“The smaller you start, it can impact more,” she concluded. 

This summer she’s looks forward to learning more about spray paint and helping New Haveners see that living in a city can be positive and not negative, as is often portrayed. 

Once the group finished up with Garfield and touch ups at Scantlebury, they drove to the corner of Goffe Street and Sherman Avenue near Hillhouse High School to cover up graffiti on another electrical box. 

The group considered painting Snoopy on the box, but ultimately decided on a Smurf theme to represent Hillhouse’s blue Academics. Flowers and mushrooms blossomed from the electrical box after the group’s work. 

Santana, who also joined the art program for a second year, declared that New Haven needs more art representing cartoons that make people happy. 

Hence the group’s choices to paint Garfield and a Smurf Tuesday. 

“It invites people and families in so they can participate in safe spaces,” Santana said. 

Like Gomez, she said she often sees cities viewed as dangerous places and so her mission is to dispel those beliefs and bring fun through art all over the city. 

Santana added that as a third-year Youth@Work employee she appreciates the balance in work the program offers. Her sophomore year, she did entry-level work with the city’s department of elderly services. ​“Its helpful to have options,” she said. 

LeQuire has facilitated the art van program for the past two years because she believes being surrounded by art can be empowering. ​“When you’re surrounded by not-kept-up areas, it puts you in that mentality that you are your surroundings,” she said.