LA Taco: From Prison to Major Museums and His First Book, Mr. Wash Is Now Building a Community Art Center

Photo by Joppe Jacob Rog

Thank you so much to Ivan from LA Taco for this excellent feature! See an excerpt below and read the full piece here.

Mr. Wash (aka Fulton Leroy Washington) was only seven or eight years old when he made his first mark as an artist.

A local elder and artist invited his friends and him to add to his latest project: the Watts Towers Arts Center. A young Wash helped to push marbles into wet concrete, before painting them.

This core memory is one of many that have inspired him to construct the Art By Wash Studio & Community Center, funded in part by proceeds from his first book, "Mr. Wash Presents: Artists In Space – Exploring The Connection Between Place & Practice."

“I think this is something that a lot of the children today don't have,” Wash says over the phone about his still-under-construction studio and art center. “They don't have these type of places where they can go meet people, learn how to do things that spark their curiosity and hold on to them for the rest of their life.”