Gay radio hosts Craig Olsen and Robbie
Laughlin have turned a defaced billboard for their program into a
message of hope.
Olsen and Laughlin, hosts of The
Craig & Robbie Hour, decided against replacing a billboard a
second time after it was twice vandalized, opting instead for hiring
local artist Jamie Ochoa to create what Olsen called a “message of
hope.”
According to The
Los Angeles Times, the billboard, located in the Fairfax
district of Los Angeles, was battered with rounds of white paintballs
by vandals.
By creating religious symbols from the
paint splattering, Ochoa altered the billboard into something closer
to a mural.
“It is a billboard that you notice,
and you especially notice it when it's been defaced,” said a local
resident. “And if you noticed the billboard before, now you pause
for a moment to think about what you're looking at.”
The men said they suspect the billboard
was defaced as an anti-gay message.
“I felt like somebody has smacked me
across the face and said, 'Get out,'” Olsen said. “But I wasn't
going to roll over.”
“It's almost like my holiday card to
my community,” he added.