Art brought and kept St. Louis father and son together

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Jovan Simpson watched as the boys older than him at Clinton-Peabody housing complex were either sent off to prison or shot in the streets.

The easiest way to make a buck was to sell drugs. The easiest way to make friends was to join a gang.

One hot summer day in 1994, although he didn’t know it then, his inevitable path to nowhere changed course.

A white guy in a Jeep Wrangler began showing up, offering to teach children how to draw in one of the city’s most dangerous neighborhoods. The first four teens to approach the man included Jovan’s older brother, Tito Patterson.

“My mom said: ‘Get up. Do something. Show them you know how to do art.’ I said, ‘OK, I’ll give it a try,’” Tito recalls.

Outside, Tito and his friends saw Bob Hansman, a professor in the architecture department at Washington University, with a stack of drawing tablets, pacing back and forth.

A couple of university students were with him.

“We’re looking at them strange. They’re in a low-income housing project,” said Tito, now 36. “I sat down on the curb, drew a tree with rocks under it. They were amazed by it. The next day I told my little brother, ‘Get up. These people are cool. Let’s go down there.’”

Jovan began by drawing cartoon characters — Bart Simpson, Ninja Turtles, Calvin and Hobbes.

He and his friend, Jermaine Roberts, became regulars, helping Hansman organize the art program, which would eventually move into a food pantry the Guardian Angel Settlement Association was no longer using in the neighborhood’s community center.

After a slow start, the program known as City Faces began to take off. But not even two years in, it nearly collapsed.

On May 16, 1996, Jermaine died of sickle cell anemia at age 17. It was the same day Jovan saw Tito for the last time before he was sent to prison, convicted of assault and robbery.

“Jermaine was my peacemaker, my right arm, and also Jovan’s best friend,” Hansman said. “I thought life was over. I thought the program was over.”

For Jovan, the loss of Jermaine and Tito, who was sentenced to more than a decade behind bars, was too much for the 15-year-old.

He went walking in the rain, hoping someone would shoot him.

“He was just lost,” Hansman said.

Within a few weeks, Jovan called Hansman.

“Can I come over and run away?”

“Sure,” said Hansman, who lived in the Affton area at the time.

Jovan spent the night. Then another.

Several months went by.

Finally, Jovan asked: “Will you adopt me?”

A SAFE SPACE

The adoption did not officially go through until May 15, 2002, after Jovan was 21. But the two had long since taken on the titles of father and son, living and growing together, with Bob becoming Pops. Jovan formally changed his surname to Hansman.

Jovan and his brothers never knew their biological fathers, and their mother struggled with alcohol and raising three sons in the projects. It wasn’t easy leaving his mom, but Jovan said he had no choice. Stay, and die a violent death at a young age like so many of his friends, or be sent off to prison like his younger brother, Marvin, currently serving time for murder.

Or escape to an unknown life where there appeared to be some hope.

Jovan and Bob continued offering art classes at City Faces, and for a short time opened a studio in University City featuring Jovan’s work, but it was too expensive an endeavor and was closed after two years.

The two men focused their attention solely on Clinton-Peabody. With the help of a growing number of Washington University student volunteers, they began offering after-school tutoring, health and nutrition classes, and a mentoring program. The room filled with portraits painted by Jovan was becoming a refuge.

But some of the Washington U. students, who often come with an idyllic, save-the-world attitude, became frustrated in the program.

“They say, ‘I feel like a glorified baby sitter sometimes’ and I say, ‘you know how important that is?’ They have an empty refrigerator. They are facing eviction,” Bob said.

And the violence in this part of town has continued.

In May 2011, a 7-year-old girl was shot in the head while on a playground with friends near the studio. She died a few weeks later.

Ten months later, a 44-year-old woman died from a gunshot to the abdomen. Both were casualties from bullets intended for others in battles over drugs and money.

Today, the group of active Washington U. volunteers stands at about 40, and is expected to grow with the incoming freshman class.

“We are hoping that we are creating a safe space where we can put issues aside for a little bit and have some fun,” said Sophia Keskey, a Washington U. student from Tacoma, Wash.

Ultimately, it’s about getting to know one another. Understanding one another.

‘AT LONG LAST’

Bob and Jovan know the importance of forging a relationship. Theirs began as a strained one, especially after Jovan moved in.

“I didn’t know how to open up and talk to anybody,” Jovan said.

“We didn’t know what to say to each other at first,” Bob said. “I’d throw out topics and he wouldn’t say anything.”

“I was nervous. I was worried I’d say something stupid and have to come back” to Peabody, Jovan said.

The younger Hansman felt caught between two lives. The one in the projects, and the one in south St. Louis County, where he said police harassed him almost daily and neighbors looked at him with disapproval.

“But I’d rather be detained by police and people calling me (names) than being shot at,” said Jovan, who has had two bullet wounds, one on his right leg and another on his neck.

Jovan wanted to let Bob know how much he appreciated his acceptance. Bob was spending large chunks of time at Washington University, up for tenure. It gave Jovan plenty of time alone with his thoughts. He began writing.

“It was in my heart but I couldn’t let it out.”

He finally slid a note under Bob’s bedroom door.

“At long last, I have a father.”

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