Los Angeles high school students honor slain skateboarder Tyre Nichols with art project

A group of Los Angeles students gathered on an April morning in the courtyard of Alexander Hamilton High School, wooden skateboard decks in hand.

Their freshly sanded and white-primed boards were blank canvases – but not for long.

They will soon be adorned with the students’ creative graphic designs in memory of Tyre Nichols, a Sacramento, California-born father, photographer and skateboarder who appreciated art.

Nichols died after being beaten by Memphis, Tennessee, police during a January traffic stop.

The students’ goal: Design skateboards that honor Nichols and capture his unique style. They want to celebrate his life and shine a light on police reform, said Stephanie Mack, owner of Los Angeles-based Cater 2 Sk8r, a mobile snack truck that alsosells skateboarding equipment.

The designs are "quite a different spectrum,” said Mack, who is leading the project.

Students plan to finish the project by graduation in May. Much of the process was captured on camera by Regal Pics, a film and photography company. Their project and interviews will be turned into a documentary.

“Being a part of this is helping other people notice what happened to Tyre, and also see the kids that are actually in support of changing the reforms and making a difference,” Regal Pics owner Megan Love said.

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The short film and project, which will highlight the students as new artists, will debut around the time of the students’ graduation in May, according to Mack. The documentary will be shown during a high school assembly and entered into Los Angeles-area film festivals, she said.

How the Tyre Nichols Project began

Last September, Alexander Hamilton High School’s graphic design and yearbook department contacted Mack for a donation of 26 blank skateboard decks for the students’ final art project.

Their original plan was to give the students free rein to design and create whatever art they wanted using Adobe Illustrator. For three months, they sketched and planned their ideas, Mack said. Then, on Jan. 7, Nichols was severely beaten by five Memphis police officers. He died three days later.

“I was devastated, I just wept,” said Mack, whose oldest son is around Nichols’ age.Nichols was 29 when he died.

She thought of ways to celebrate Nichols. Cater 2 Sk8r's founder and most of the art students pivoted their design plans to create the Tyre Nichols Project, which will include a documentary of the students' work.

“This film will be a lasting imprint of his life,” Mack said.

Honoring Tyre Nichols through art

Alexander Hamilton, a public high school in Los Angeles' Castle Heights neighborhood, enrolls more than 2,300 students, more than half of whom are Hispanic. The graphic design class working on the skateboards is part of the school's Communication Arts Academy, a college preparatory school for students interested in visual and communicative arts.

Rubi Aparicio, an 18-year-old senior and Los Angeles native, is one of the students altering her design to honor Nichols.

“On the backside of the skateboard, I drew a bunch of hearts with little faces and puckered lips, and on the front, it says ‘I love you’ in French,” Aparicio said.

She plans to add Nichols’ initials to one of the hearts, with his full name written under the phrase “je t'aime.” Herartwork is inspired by her belief that the world needs love.

“We never know what people are going through,” she said.

The students have receivedguidance from Los Angeles muralist Mike Norice, who often works with youths and has designed skateboards.

“This generation has seen a lot, Tyre Nichols, George Floyd and others who have been killed by police,” Norice said. “These kids are very radical, they're a different new tech generation that wants to show their feelings, especially through art."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Tyre Nichols honored by LA art students through skateboard project