By Walter Smelt

“You need to feel good, to do good things.” These words, along with many others, were inscribed on an unorthodox art-object: a skateboard deck that had been painted gold and suspended from a ceiling. The transmogrified skateboard is part of “Be a Villen,” an exhibit of work by young Somerville artists that opened Friday night at the Nave Gallery in the Clarendon Hill Presbyterian Church.

Despite the suspicious-sounding nickname ‚Äúvillen‚Äù (an acknowledgement of their Somerville roots), the artists were certainly doing ‚Äúgood things‚Äù — a portion of the proceeds from the show will go to a scholarship fund for Somerville High School students.

But while spirits were high at the opening, ‚Äúfeeling good‚Äù was tempered by the recent loss of the young man who gave the advice now written on the skateboard, the man for whom the scholarship has been named as a memorial. Brian Liberatore died in an accident last October at 24. In the Nave Gallery, Liberatore’s friends and his brother Scott finally have the opportunity to express not only their pain, but also their hope.

‚ÄúA lot of good things come out of Somerville, and a lot of bad things,‚Äù said Mike Curtis, a 25-year-old artist and former roommate of Brian Liberatore’s. Curtis said he had been hearing about the untimely deaths of young Somerville residents due to accidents, drugs or suicide ‚Äúsince we were little. We thought it was just normal.‚Äù One reason for the high number of deaths, he believes, is that ‚Äúa lot of kids got nothing to do.‚Äù He feels Somerville needs more space where young people can come together and express themselves — as they had for ‚ÄúBe a Villen.‚Äù

Curtis gave an example of one communal space that had disappeared. “Somerville High School was one of the best places in the country to skate,” he said. But its perfectly placed steps and rails had been ripped out to discourage skateboarding. The vacant lot behind the school, he added, could have been turned into a safe place for kids to congregate. Instead it has become a dog park.

Still, Curtis expressed hope that the situation was improving. “All my friends are getting heard now,” he said.

He cited not only the current exhibit, which is co-sponsored by the organizations ARTSomerville and Teen Empowerment, but also a new group called Save Our Somerville, devoted to strengthening community ties in the city. (Save Our Somerville is led by Matthew, Mark and Dan McLaughlin; Mark and Dan are also featured in the exhibit.)

Curtis’s belief that Somerville’s problems are surmountable is evident in a pair of his graffiti-style paintings hanging in the Nave. Both show a spray paint-wielding character who faces up to an ominous black cloud; the first bears the legend THE VILLE, and the second NEVER RAN, NEVER WILL.

The same attitude (with a little more of an edge) shows up in one of the photos by Scott Liberatore, a 21-year-old artist and the surviving brother of Brian Liberatore. In the photo, called ‚ÄúMolotov Condo,‚Äù an anonymous figure in a hoodie and a gas-mask stands next to a new cookie-cutter condominium, holding a bottle with a flaming rag stuck in the top. When asked if he was making a suggestion with the photo, Liberatore laughed. ‚ÄúI don’t do that stuff. Just taking a stab at gentrification, kind of showing how kids feel about it.‚Äù Growing up, he said, everyone knew and talked to their neighbors, but that’s no longer the case. Still, he is encouraged by the efforts of Save Our Somerville, which he says ‚Äúis really trying to do the right thing.‚Äù

While some of Liberatore’s art expresses frustration with the way things are in Somerville today, an ambitious photo collage he created with Steve Morris celebrates the city with dozens of shots taken through a fish-eye lens: a junior football league, a Brazilian restaurant, graffiti, a police car, a cat sniffing the camera, a kid posing with his skateboard, a playground.

The pictures unite different facets of Somerville in a way that would have pleased Brian Liberatore, described by friends as “a unifier who tried to bring people together.” The fierce love these young artists feel for their community, for each other, and for the ones they have lost comes across in all the art, which will be on display through February 9.