The program is now in its 17th year and has helped educate more than 1,000 Southern California teenagers so far.
Many of the young artists who have taken part in the program have developed into professionals in the arts themselves.
Some of them have even become a focal point in a new exhibit titled "Ryman Arts: An Artist and His Legacy," now on display at Glendale's Forest Lawn Museum.
Joan Adan, Forest Lawn's exhibit designer and curator, decided to pursue this project after being inspired by Ryman Arts and its commitment to help young artists accomplish more in life.
Adan was a former colleague of Ryman's at Disney and she wanted to show the community just how successful the Ryman Arts program had become while still reminding them of the man who inspired the foundation.
"Ryman Arts is a terrific community outreach program," Adan said. "Who knows where these students would be if it were not for the Ryman program." Ryman Arts helped Oscar Magallanes overcome the adversities he faced growing up in a poor Azusa barrio.
Magallanes, a Ryman alumni and chair of the Ryman Arts Alumni Assn., has a few of his paintings hanging only feet away from Ryman's at the museum.
"These works of art exemplify how he has changed lives," Magallanes said.
On the adjacent wall to Magallanes' powerful paintings of those who unwillingly become part of the urban background sits a row of photographs taken by fellow alumni Natalie Marie Franco. Franco began Ryman Arts at 16 and went on to graduate from the Academy of Art University of San Francisco.
"Ryman reassured me that I wanted to be an artist," said Franco.
Her photographs blend her subjects in with the environment and cover a variety of topics from AIDS to drug addiction.
