How To Paint Murals

Providence to remove graffiti, give artists a new outlet

PROVIDENCE — The graffiti on Fran Parente’s business, ROSKAP Inc., was scrawled in blue, black and white letters on the grates that protect his windows when it’s closed.

Across the street, the empty building that once housed a popular restaurant that served up roasted chicken and fried plantains, El Fogon, remained freshly painted and relatively clean of graffiti for months. Why would someone scrawl graffiti on a business and leave an abandoned building untouched? Parente said he and the other people at work wondered.

That was until Monday when they came to work and looked across the street to see that someone had scrawled large letters on El Fogon’s walls like other businesses and residents along Broad Street.

On Tuesday, Mayor Angel Tavares stood in front of Parente’s graffiti-scrawled building to announce a city initiative to combat graffiti by cleaning it up and working with artists and community groups to make murals and public art on transformer boxes.

Taveras said, this summer, the Graffiti Task Force will be doubling its efforts to clean and “attack [graffiti] wherever it appears.”

The Graffiti Task force has two vans equipped with high-pressure sprayers and paint donated by Mount Pleasant Hardware. But it’s also up to city residents to report graffiti in their neighborhoods, Taveras said, as well as talk to their children about how harmful it is to their community.

The city offers a $500 reward for information that leads to the arrest and prosecution of vandals. There is a hot line to report graffiti at 1-800-TAGGERS (1-800-824-4377). To have graffiti removed, go to www.providenceri.com/graffiti to report it by computer. The request will be tracked and the resident will be notified when the graffiti has been removed.

Taveras said murals are a proven deterrent against graffiti. There are plans in the works to bring mural projects to areas that are most affected by graffiti. The city joined with the Department of Art, Culture and Tourism and three local community organizations to bring public art to communities in the form of murals and the painting of transformer boxes. Broad and Cranston streets are among the areas where graffiti is most prevalent, according to David Ortiz , spokesman for the mayor’s office.

Lisa Aurecchia, program director for the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council, said painting murals along graffiti hot spots has worked to reduce graffiti.

“Artwork commands respect. It’s exciting to see dirty, tagged walls blossom to a piece of artwork. Murals build stewardship and let people know the area is being cared for,” she said.

Aurecchia said she spent many an hour working with volunteers cleaning graffiti and repainting walls and benches in projects along the Woonasquatucket, but it is when the community started to paint murals that people started being more respectful of the spaces.

Lynne McCormack, director of art, culture and tourism for the city, said the city plans to restore the Italian heritage mural along Federal Hill and Route 6. It will send out requests for proposals for a mural along the Woonasquatucket River Greenway as well as work with the Broad Street Merchants Association for a Broad Street mural.

The city also plans to have artists submit proposals to paint the city’s electrical boxes, emulating a project in Boston. The projects will be paid for through a Community Development Block Grant.

Parente, whose business imports costume jewelry, said he is glad the graffiti squad painted away the graffiti on his building, but it’s such a common occurrence that he is wary it will happen again.

“It could stay clean a day, it could be more.”

tpina@projo.

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