Ya/Ya

Young Aspirations/Young Artists (YA/YA), Inc., is the phenomenal New Orleans nonprofit arts organization started by the painter Jana Napoli in 1988. It is part school, part community center, part gallery, part working studio. But it is the commercial-art students - primarily African Americans - from nearby L. E. Rabouin Career Magnet High School in the city's central business district who breathe life into that entity. They are the YA/YAs. The YA/YAs came to the attention of the outside world through their painted chairs. Napoli first had them depict their dreams and fears on secondhand…