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October 24-30, 2002 art Drawing Borders
It's Mural Arts Month, and the Mural Arts Program is celebrating new growth and facing new controversy. In the next week, Mural Arts Month, the annual flurry of dedications, festivals and tours sponsored by Philadelphia’s Mural Arts Program (MAP), comes to a close. There’s still time to see the dedications of a mural celebrating United Way at 47th and Chestnut and a National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign mural at 34th and Haverford. Families can head to the Art Museum on Sunday to create a mural with local artist Ana Uribe. There’s even a literary event, in honor of Philadelphia Murals… and the Stories They Tell, a soon-to-be-released coffee table book co-authored by MAP’s director, Jane Golden, Inquirer columnist Monica Yant Kinney and City Paper art critic Robin Rice. The 18-year-old Mural Arts Program is as prodigious as ever, thanks in part to underwriting from Fleet bank and a new operation headquarters -- artist Thomas Eakins' home at 1729 Mt. Vernon St. Fittingly, the house's first floor has been turned into an exhibition space for work from program-affiliated artists. Professional painters, youth volunteers and prison inmates are all on the gallery's schedule. One interesting aspect of the works currently on display -- miniaturized photos of the goliath murals -- is how striking the images become when framed and hung, how beautiful the murals are when you're not speeding past at 70 mph on I-76 or cantering to work on Market Street. The sheer number of them is staggering; over 2,400 murals canvas office buildings, schools and rowhomes in Philadelphia. But even more confounding is how often they're overlooked in our cityscape, often remembered only as an acrylic blur or even mistaken for the graffiti they once supplanted. Mural Arts has consistently fought these kinds of perceptions, using 30-story canvases, arresting montages and subjects that scream for attention. There's the three-story Dr. J looming over Ridge Avenue, the colorful montage of "Philadelphia Muses" on 13th and Locust, and prolific mosaic artist Isaiah Zagar's cascade of glittering tile, mirror, ceramic and cement on South Street -- just a few of MAP's most ambitious projects. Along with creating art, MAP is also known for its ability to create controversy, with community and political disputes marring the creation of many of their artworks over the years. Mural Arts' newest program has proved provocative almost by accident. Last spring, with Mayor Street's anti-blight campaign in full swing, Mural Arts began working with the city government and Philadelphia Green on an experimental project. Their goal: Convert derelict urban spaces into community art gardens. As the name implies, an art garden is a small plot of flowers, planters, trellises and murals, all assembled on the footprint of a long-gone building. Three were built over the summer; three more are slated for next year. On Sept. 13, Mural Arts dedicated "Winding Roses," in Francisville, the newest and most ambitious of these gardens to date. The garden is a 40-by-30-foot space at Brown and Uber streets, with rosebushes around the perimeter, and stunning mosaic benches and tables as its centerpiece. A two-story-tall mural, depicting a rose-covered arch and Greek sculptures, forms its eastern wall. Though the painting, with its pastoral iconography, isn’t as daring as other Mural Arts projects, it acts like a Hollywood backdrop, making the garden look twice as large. The most moving part of “Winding Roses,” however, isn’t planted on grass or drawn on walls. It’s an “Ultra Security” lock and wire fence that surround the scene. Shaquatta Oliphant, an 11th grader who crafted some of the mosaics, offers a simple explanation: "The lock is so we can keep out drug dealers and stuff." She adds that a neighborhood captain is the key-master, and he only grants access to people who helped build the garden. Tonita Torres, a 10th grader whose mother dragooned her into Mural Arts, says, "It was real hard work. The cement didn't mix right once, the tiles didn't stick, and we had to start from scratch. Now that it's done, we don't want people messing it up." Golden initially wasn't happy that the garden was locked. "In an ideal world, [we] would love for the spaces to be open all the time. The truth is that we're in an urban environment and there's vandalism and crime.... The decision [to lock] has to be driven by the community." Since she took over the operation in 1984, when it was called the Anti-Graffiti Network, Golden has grown the program rapidly: hiring renowned artists, securing foundation funding and working with the Department of Recreation. Still, she says, "the reason the program has withstood the test of time is because we have such great working relationships with communities." Artist David Woods, who designed the mosaics (Barbara Smolen and Jason Slowik painted the mural), reiterated the community-artist mantra at the garden's dedication. It took the help of local youths like Oliphant and Torres, members of Mural Arts' Big Picture corps, to make the garden a reality. In addition to helping Woods and a landscape architect, the community was given final approval on the artistic design. This is standard practice, so that the work will "reflect the character of the neighborhood," says Golden. But, now completed, the garden is hardly a community nexus. On a sunny Sunday afternoon, outside the fenced plot, there is plenty of neighborhood spirit -- children biking about, parents chatting on stoops, a Mister Softee truck patrolling. Yet "Winding Roses" sits suspended in time, like a shoebox scene of Elysium. A visit to the "Reading Garden," at Avenue B and Wyoming in Fountainville, reveals the same predicament: a patch of greenery, bucolic and manicured, that is chained up and off limits. Barbed wire helps reinforce the message. From the street, one can see sculptures of oversized fairy-tale books -- the park adjoins a branch of the Free Library -- and more mosaic-encrusted benches. The books depict scenes of Haiti, Africa and the Middle East, and a 20-foot-tall mural celebrates diversity. "I think it needs to be locked," says James Gilfillan, a recent high-school grad. "But you can still see everything from the street. We want people to be impressed, say Œwow,' and then maybe get a book from the library." "The desire to lock up the spaces isn't coming from a bad place or a place of exclusion," says Golden. "It's coming from a desire to protect.... The spaces are sacred, in a sense. People see them as an oasis in the city." This desire -- to turn urban decay into peaceful sanctuary -- is a notion that MAP often encounters. With the program's traditional murals, communities often request scenes of pastoral beauty and racial harmony. In the early years of the program, Golden says that she wanted people to try political and historical subject matter, "similar to what was in L.A.... But in those first few years, all everyone wanted was a waterfall." "Peace Plaza," which was dedicated on Oct. 5 in Grays Ferry, is the lone art garden without security measures. A winding pathway, dotted with mosaic-stone peace symbols, traverses the plot at 29th and Wharton. A mural on the south wall proudly depicts a multiethnic huddle of hands. Fear of loitering led the neighborhood to decline Mural Arts' mosaic benches, says Golden. Antoine Johnson, a 10th grader who worked on the garden, says that he wants it kept open. But, he adds, "If people start hanging out, I'll tell them to leave. I don't want anyone dealing drugs or leaving their trash." In the end, amid the urban clutter of our city, the art gardens manage to become even more visible, perhaps, because they aren’t inhabitable. Standing on the street, admiring the manicured artifice -- the fence begins to look like a frame, and yes, there’s beauty inside that chainlink. For a full schedule of Mural Arts Month events or for a mural tour, contact MAP at 215-685-0754 or www.muralarts.org. 
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