The lights are off. Tall aluminum cabinets sit cracked open, teeming with brushes, markers and paper. Tubes of paint stand on tabletops, their caps screwed on tight. Folding chairs, stacked up like bricks, leave the two collapsible tables to stand alone in the middle of the floor.
The Art In Reality classroom, just weeks ago a mecca for artistic teens, is now vacant
AIR is a free program within the City’s Parks and Recreation Department that offers a variety of visual and performing arts classes to teens, ages 13 to 21. Opportunities range from aerosol art, to DJ School, to fashion.
With more than 50 partners throughout the city, AIR teams up with charter, vocational, public and alternative high schools, and local businesses to make sure that no student in Pima County is denied a chance to express their artistic side.
Citywide budget cuts have ravaged countless recreation programs across Tucson, but perhaps none has been hit harder than Arts In Reality. They have been forced to cut their budget nearly in half.
The program is not given its own line of budget from Tucson, but rather pulls from other programs within the recreation department.
In the past, the recreation department was allocated a discretionary fund, which was used to finance various youth organizations, including AIR. That fund no longer exists within the department, forcing programs like AIR to find alternative sources of funding.
For the past five years, Arts In Reality was given an annual budget of $20,000 to include teacher salaries, supply costs and field trips for every class. This year that number was slashed to $12,000.
Adding to the financial pinch, the demand for their classes has grown. This year 117 students enrolled in classes, up from less than 100 students the previous year.
As a result, classes originally scheduled to meet twice a week now only meet once. Teacher salaries have been cut completely and now the classes are taught strictly on a volunteer basis.
Aerosol art, one of AIR’s most popular classes, has maintained its normal hours, but the program can no longer afford to pay for supplies, now relying on private donations and money directly out of the pocket of Ruth Marblestone, program director for Arts In Reality.
The aerosol class meets in the Armory Center. The room is nestled in a remote corner of the building, which primarily functions as a community center for the elderly. Noah Hartman, 16, a junior at Tucson School for the Visual Arts, sits at the table and focuses intently on his sketch for his portion of a Dia De Los Muertos mural commissioned by the Steven Murray Art Gallery.
“We’re working on something constructive,” said Hartman, “not just tagging train cars and billboards.”
Rocky Martinez, the aerosol art instructor, starts by taking attendance and making sure that all of the students have completed their homework. For today’s class, students were supposed to bring a rough sketch of their piece for the mural. As the classroom fills up, Rocky begins to go over human anatomy, specifically the bone structure, because of the abundance of skeletons the kids are drawing for this mural.
Commissioning murals is one of the primary ways the program is able to showcase the hard work of the students over the course of the semester.
Marblestone has made arrangements with Steven Murray, owner of Steven Murray Art Gallery, to use the side of his building as the site for their mural. The gallery is located at 1122 N. Stone Ave., on the corner of Stone Avenue and Speedway Boulevard.
“So many of these kids don’t get an opportunity and they don’t have an outlet for art,” said Marblestone. “I want to show them that they can put it together, and they are smart.”
It is just a few days before the Dia De Los Muertos procession when a white pick-up truck pulls into the dirt lot, kicking up dust in front of Murray’s gallery. It’s Martinez. He parks in the middle of the lot and immediately the seven or eight students who have been waiting swarm. The bed of the truck, loaded with hundreds of cans of spray paint, serves as the hub of the field trip, as students debate over which colors are needed for the mural.
The wall stands about 15 feet high and 60 feet long. A few days earlier, the students painted a blood-red sunset over lush green hills.
Noah started work on a skeleton-dog a few days earlier, and today he puts the finishing touches on its skull. A lavender diamond creates its nose, and canary yellow flowers speckled with blue make up the dog’s eyes.
Murray, who has owned the property for more than two years, spends the afternoon with the students as they paint his wall.
“It’s not love. It’s an absolute need. It’s like breathing,” said Murray. “For these kids making art is like breathing.”
Murray and Marblestone share the same commitment to giving teens an opportunity to create art constructively. Murray encourages the students to get their work into his gallery so they can potentially make a profit.
Courtney Wilson sits and watches her 13-year-old son as he tries his hand at the spray paint for the first time.
“This is art. The other stuff is just tagging for gangs,” said Wilson.
The last few rays of light peek over the mural as the sun begins to set. Martinez knows they have their work cut out if they plan to finish before the procession but the day’s work is done. Paint cans are tossed back into Martinez’s truck as parents arrive from all over the city to pick up their kids.
With the future of the program uncertain, Marblestone continues to search out new sponsors that can help Arts In Reality right the financial ship.
“We really need the city to roll up their sleeves,” said Marblestone. “They need to make a commitment to the youth.”
