Turning Bus Shelters Into Art Showcases

Victor Reyes works as a prep chef at a local middle school Monday through Friday, but answers to a higher calling. “Art motivates me to get up every day.“ Reyes was the first to step up when Metro, the countywide mass transit agency. and JC Decaux Co., the world’s largest producer of bus shelters, approached Art Division in Westlake about decorating some stops along 6th Street. Reyes used hummingbirds, the sun and the moon to illustrate an ancient Guatemalan love story, and Nick Arciero, Alex OtisWoods and Luis Mateo helped him complete the project at Alvarado. Other faculty and students from Art Division, a training program for young artists alongside MacArthur Park, also transformed stops at Grandview, Virgil and Westmoreland streets.Decaux provided and maintains more than 2,000 bus shelters across L.A. through a public private partnership managed by Street Services.