Creating a Sense of Place: DrawBridge hosts Graffiti Artist Daniel Gallegos

In April 2009, DrawBridge and The Henry Robinson Multi-Service Center in Oakland invited guest artist Daniel Gallegos to help the children in our art group design and paint a graffiti mural in the center’s teen room. Daniel, a longtime artist, was involved in the graffiti art movement in the San Francisco Bay Area during the 1980's-1990's. He has done graffiti projects with children all over the world.

The first week we had Daniel teach the children the fundamentals of graffiti. They practiced designing, drawing, and coloring their own graffiti art using a roll of white paper, pencils, ink pens, and crayons.


Daniel returned the next week to help the children design and paint the mural. Daniel sketched out the letters and the kids filled them in with different paints. It was so great to see everybody working together on a single art piece, that will become a permanent fixture at Henry Robinson. After all the letters were painted, Daniel went back over them with spray paint while the kids watched.




The mural was a huge success! All the kids were very excited about the process as well as the end result. It was a fun and educational experience for all parties involved! Through the art, we are hoping the children have been able to create a stronger community and a sense of place at Henry Robinson Multi-Service Center.