Crushow Herring plays the roles of artist and father at the Festival for All Skid Row Artists. (Allegra Tepper)

"Life is art. The street is art. I'm just an artist and art is me," he said while showcasing his varied artistry at the Festival for All Skid Row Artists in Gladys Park.

This year's festival, an initiative by the Los Angeles Poverty Department, is the second of its kind. Their mission is to create performances and multidisciplinary artworks that connect the experience of people living in poverty to the social forces that shape their lives and communities. 

A modest but vibrant bevy of Skid Row residents spent the first of two afternoons performing slam poetry, dramatic monologues, bluegrass, rap, and barbershop a cappella - not the pastimes one might associate with a community that hosts one of the largest stable homeless populations in the country. 

"Skid Row is like a mother — it nourishes you," Herring said in between bouncing around the concrete park that spans half a block in Central City East, just a stone's throw from the Midnight Mission shelter. 

"I came out here as a peddler after college. People realized that instead of buying the dope with money, they could pay me in art supplies," he said, standing next to two large wooden canvases he'd painted. One portrays a pregnant woman as a sort of ethereal goddess, the other a work-in-progress that shows Herring teaching his 7-year-old son Arteist how to tie his shoe.

Across the basketball court, Arteist painted a portrait of his father at one of the Creativity Stations. When asked if he wanted to grow up to be an artist like his dad, Arteist furrowed his brow and said, "I already am an artist," then hopped up to display his latest painting next to his father's. 

The most palpable thing at the festival was a strong sense of community. Everyone knew one another's work; they even seemed to take personal stake in each others' progress. The Skid Row Photography Club strolled around snapping pictures of artists and friends using donated cameras. Herring took the mic following Pre-Destined, a barbershop chorus, to rap original lyrics that had a small crowd echoing "Skid Row is holy ground." Meanwhile, a couple of friends taught Arteist how to ride an oversized bike on the basketball court. 

The festival was above all else an attempt to overcome the circumstances, and a successful one at that. One performer, Mary Barnes, or Queen Mary as she prefers to be called, said it was "God's way of letting us know we still count, that we have to give ourselves a chance again."

A resident of the community for the last 25 years, Queen Mary had the air of a local celebrity. She urged people to hop up from benches and dance to the sounds of the Skid Row Playaz, a seven-piece drum circle. 

"I'm getting to express myself, and when I dance it makes people happy," she said of her moves, a blend of African tribal and hip-hop. "I want the people who arrive here today hopeless to leave feeling uplifted."

Walter Fears, a member of the Skid Row Playaz and of the LAPD, shared the sentiment. He said he believes that art has the power to make people feel good about themselves, each other, and ultimately the community. 

"This is tranquil," he said. "It gives people a chance to relax, be entertained, get fed physically, mentally and spiritually."

Tranquil was the only way to describe the park when two members of Street Symphony took the platform. They followed an emotional monologue by LAPD member Ciera Payton, who performed an excerpt from her one-woman show "Michael's Daughter." Payton's show is a compilation of prison letters she exchanged with her father and a commentary on the U.S. prison system. 

The Street Symphony duo announced that in honor of his 256th birthday, they would play Mozart. Surprisingly, the crowd erupted. 

"The mission of our organization is to bring the music I play at Disney Hall every day to the most underserved audiences," said Robert Gupta, a violinist in the Los Angeles Philharmonic and founder of Street Symphony. "We're finding that this music is about communicating a basic human message, and it's one of the most meaningful things that we can do."

The symphony competed with the sounds of sirens roaring past the park, but the intimate audience remained all-ears. Neither Mozart nor the canvases hanging on the park fencing could shield the festival from the surroundings. Along the perimeter, a dozen homeless people slept. They'd been moved inside the park by police officers after a stabbing had taken place across the street that morning. 

There was a unanimous respect for Christian Alan Como, who humbly displayed his photorealistic black-and-white pencil renderings in a shady corner next to the alley. Despite his being removed from most of the action, people flocked to see his portraits of Miles Davis, Ludacris, Steve Harvey, and 50 Cent. Onlookers marveled at how the works didn't just capture the gentlemens' likeness; Como nailed every last detail down to Ludacris' unibrow and Miles Davis' pores.

"I became homeless but I wouldn't accept sleeping on the streets," he said. "So at night, I'd go to Denny's, buy a cup of coffee, and draw. Turned out I was pretty good."

It was clear that the story of how each artist discovered their craft, much the same as the stories of how they wound up on Skid Row, were different. Some, like Herring and Fears, landed on Skid Row as a result of athletic injuries after college. Others spoke of past addictions and prison time. 

What they did share was a pride in the area, a desire to distinguish themselves from the community identity through their art, and an unspoken agreement that they wouldn't abandon Skid Row because Skid Row hadn't abandoned them. 

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