In most major cities, graffiti can be a big problem. People see varying paint on a wall and call it vandalism. Newark, however, is taking a negative attitude and changing it into a positive one.

City Without Walls (CWOW), an art gallery specializing in exhibition and education programs, runs the annual "City Murals" program, which organizes artists, young and old, to take the beautification of their city into their own hands by painting public murals.

CWOW, New Jersey's oldest non-profit contemporary art gallery, was founded in 1975 and is funded by the New Jersey Council on the Arts as well as several other sponsors. However, the City Murals Program is new, having begun shortly before the current senior program advisor, Rodney Gilbert, became the head of CWOW.

A performing artist himself, Gilbert finds his schedule always keeps him busy. In addition to regular exhibitions and other programs such as ArtReach (a program to connect students with artist mentors) and the Newark New Media Program, the City Murals Program is a huge undertaking, he said.

Having completed the orientation sessions, the artists and volunteers for the City Murals program will begin meeting Mondayto start designs and location discussions.

Gilbert explains how those initial brainstorming sessions go.

"Out of that comes the creation," he said. "A lot of the murals that we have have been based around community."

Right now, Gilbert is looking for new sites for murals. He has been looking at each ward and even the riverfront. "I haven't gone there, but I'm curious."

Once the planning is completed, typically one or two artists will be paired together to work on each mural. Volunteers are taken on chosen volunteer days. Gilbert says they can have as many as 50 people in total painting murals throughout the summer.

Gladys Grauer, who has been an artist for over 70 years, is working on a mural in the Southward on Hawthorne Avenue as a tribute to the jazz clubs of the past. She has worked with CWOW on their City Murals Program since it began and she said it feels it is a vital part of the city.

"I think it's a very important part of Newark and I hope it will continue because city murals are very important to the community," she said. "It deals with the history, it deals with the community and the community is involved. It's not the sort of thing where artists just go around and put up something. The community is involved."

Gilbert agrees that the murals are essential to making Newark a better place to live.

"It changes people. And it's new art. It's art that, I think, the community can relate to because they've been included in it."