Boasting more than 2,000 murals - 1,600 done by the mural program - the City of Brotherly Love this year surpassed Los Angeles as the city with the most outdoor paintings.
The mural program, which in a former life was known as the Anti-Graffiti Network, received the bulk of the money, $466,000, from the William Penn Foundation. The generous gift was well worth it, given its dual purpose of educating children about mural art and beautifying the cityscape, foundation president Janet Haas said.
The money will be used to expand the arts education program, which pairs professional artists with children, and to paint 15 murals over the next three years.
In a separate award, GMAC Mortgage contributed $80,000 that will pay for eight large murals in as many Philadelphia neighborhoods.
The program's paintings, vibrant and grand, serve as gracious gateways into the city's neighborhoods and share gems of history, too.
There's Sixers great Julius Erving, oh-so-dapper in a tan suit and tie, standing larger than life at 12th and Ridge in North Philadelphia. There's Mario Lanza, belting out a song at Broad and Reed in South Philly. And Patti LaBelle, big-haired and sassy, striking a divalike pose at 34th and Mantua.
The program's success has spurred more than 600 neighborhood requests for murals during the last year.
Mural painting isn't cheap. A small mural costs from $5,000 to $10,000. And the eight- and 10-story paintings such as the magnificent and intricately painted celebration of women called ``Common Threads,'' at Broad and Spring Garden, run from $35,000 to $45,000.
Each project involves a collaboration between the program and the neighborhood where the mural will be painted. Golden commissions work from six local artists, who then create a design for the neighborhood. Residents meet with the artist to provide suggestions.
Golden oversees all the program's artists and often grabs a brush herself.
For Golden, 43, a trained artist who cut her teeth in Los Angeles before becoming artistic director for Tim Spencer's Anti-Graffiti Network, teaching children how to create murals is just as gratifying as the work itself.
The Penn grant will expand Golden's education program and allow neighborhood children to learn mural history and take field trips to museums. Golden said 25 neighborhood children - selected through interviews and essay-writing contests - will work at different mural sites on the yearlong project.
The children also will team up with artists to learn the whole art of mural painting - from preparing the building to scaffolding the wall to creating the blueprints and finally, the painting itself.
Art, she said, ``can be the opportunity for them to see themselves in a different light, to see their potential rather to be looked at as a liability.''
``It's much more than art,'' she said. ``It's everything that goes with it.''
