Philadelphia fetes murals as mirror of urban life

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters Life!) - On a shabby street corner in one of the city's poorest neighborhoods, a pair of murals covers the sides of two row houses a block apart.

The colorful paintings in Philadelphia depict a melancholy mix of incarcerated men, a dead boy and somber-looking people, most of them black. But there are also angels, a man growing out of a stout tree trunk and people holding hands in an apparent gesture of solidarity.

The murals, together called "The Healing Walls," tell the story of violence, punishment, remorse and redemption in a place with the highest rates of homicide and poverty among the 10 biggest cities in the United States.

Philadelphia boasts some 2,850 wall paintings and is getting ready to celebrate the 25th year of a program that has made the city the world capital of murals and spawned imitators as far away as Paris and Hanoi.

The murals are bolts of vibrant color in a gritty urban landscape where sidewalks crumble and litter blows through empty lots.

In bold, house-high strokes, they tell stories about local traditions such as quilting and playing music, trace the history of the neighborhood and depict real people from the community.

"It's really about making a space alive and lived in again," said Jane Golden, executive director of the Mural Arts Program, a nonprofit group that gets a quarter of its $6 million budget from the City of Philadelphia.

COMMUNITY PRIDE

The paintings are done by professional artists helped by several thousand children, teenagers and adults with problems ranging from truancy to criminal records who are referred to the program to develop traits like discipline and teamwork.

The murals nurture a sense of community and create pride where once there was only graffiti, said Golden, 52, who has run the program from the start. One measure of success is that only six images are known to have been defaced in 25 years.

The murals, each costing about $25,000, also have the power to bring together people driven apart by crime and violence, said Golden.

In the case of The Healing Walls, artist Cesar Viveros was helped by inmates of nearby Graterford prison -- some convicted of violent crimes -- and by families of crime victims.

"It's really about overcoming this great sadness," said Golden.

Not everyone believes in the social power of the murals.

Madline Lopez, 24, who has lived near The Healing Walls since they were painted in 2004, said she has not seen any drop in crime and hopes to move to a safer neighborhood soon.

"Just that painting isn't going to help," she said. "They should write a big message instead about what happens to criminals."

'FLOOD OF GLORIOUS COLOR'

Elsewhere in Philadelphia, murals are a pure celebration of people and places.

In "Reading: A Journey," a young black girl dressed in a vivid purple top sits reading a book bursting with butterflies, birds, balloons and fish.

In "Holding Grandmother's Quilt," two murals in West Philadelphia face each other across a vacant lot that was landscaped when the walls were painted.

The first depicts Mrs. Jones, a quilter and neighborhood matriarch who owns one of the houses. The other shows three local children working on a quilt, evoking a tradition passed down through the generations.

At the Church of Philadelphia in the southern part of the city, artists were working on a mural named after the church's mission "Find a need and fill it. Find a hurt and heal it."

Like every other mural, its design and content were approved by the community, which joined a waiting list of around 2,000 applicants and waited four years for it to be painted, said Pastor Carmine DiBiase.

DiBiase, 87, has run the church for 59 years and will be depicted at the center of the finished mural.

For the program's 25th anniversary celebration, starting in October, Golden's plans include a giant love letter painted on rooftops that will be visible from the elevated section of a subway line.

Golden also has ideas for a "Gateway Project" for major entry points to Philadelphia to transform unsightly urban features -- like the train line from New York City and oil tanks near the airport -- into "a flood of glorious color."

(Editing by John O'Callaghan)