I missed the exchange and engagement of my college years, and I began to feel a tug to connect with the community. I began to wonder if I had what it takes to become an artist. 

One day, while waiting at a bus stop, I came across a small article in the L.A. Times about the Los Angeles Mural Program. They were giving out grants for local artists to paint murals.

I didn’t know much about painting murals, but I was intrigued. I liked the idea of public art. My parents were fans of the WPA and I had often seen images of the murals created during 1930s.  I knew about Diego Rivera and the Mexican muralists and their powerful work dealing with culture, history, and politics. The idea of creating art in a social context appealed to me. Maybe I could become an artist without disconnecting from the world.

I called the number in the article and was told that the grant cycle had just passed. Undaunted, I asked what was needed for an application and I went to work. I found a wall, created a design, and assembled a team of volunteer artists.  A week later, I called them back.  I told them what I had done and pleaded to be allowed to submit a late application.  They said no; the deadline had passed.  So I stopped by their office and dropped off my materials anyway… just in case. Then I began calling them… every few days for several months. Tenacity is a trait that comes naturally to me.  Finally they called me back. They said, “We hope we never hear from you again, but you have the grant.”

A few weeks later, I was painting my first mural, an image of the old Ocean Park Pier in Santa Monica. This was the opposite of the isolation I found in my studio. Every day, people stopped and watched. They asked questions about the design or they discussed local politics or community issues. They visited with us and with each other. Sometimes they brought food or drinks. Every day brought a new group of residents and visitors. Even before it was fully painted the mural had become a focal point of community energy and activity. 

I was amazed and thrilled by this experience. Mural painting became my passion. I painted one mural after another.   Each work gave me new insights into the power and impact of public art. But then I had a setback. I developed a chronic illness that made me too weak to paint. I had to come home and move back in with my parents to recover my strength. This was a difficult time and again I found myself facing an uncertain future. 

But as it turned out, I did recover and slowly started painting murals again – on a small scale in the shore town where I grew up. But then I got another break…

In 1985, the City of Philadelphia had a new mayor, a new optimism, and a growing graffiti crisis. The city was being covered with spray paint. Property owners were losing the battle. They removed graffiti one day and it returned the next. Some of the new city officials saw graffiti not just as vandalism, but as misplaced artistic energy.  They wanted to find a way to redirect this behavior — the Anti-Graffiti Network was born. 

I read that the Anti-Graffiti Network was going to include a mural painting program and I immediately applied for a job. After a brief test of my commitment, working with 50 kids and buckets of house paint on the Spring Garden Bridge mural, five feet by six hundred feet long, I was hired.

Here was how it worked: if young graffiti artists would pledge to give up vandalism, and then put in time on a clean-up crew, they could join the mural program as paid apprentices. Not only could they leave their mark on the city in big, visible, and much more permanent ways, they could be paid to do it. At first we weren’t sure if the enticement would work – but gradually the word spread that “Anti” was cool. Once we attracted some big name writers like “Pez” and “Knife” and “Baby Roc,” others followed.

For many kids, art can be a lifeline – to help them escape the whirlpool of vandalism, drugs, and crime. As these kids worked on mural crews, they learned not only about composition, color, and brush strokes but also about teamwork, self-discipline, and responsibility. More importantly, they began to believe in their own potential.

At the same time we were working with young people, we began making a push to bring murals to neighborhoods across the city.  It was clear to us that people living in many parts of Philadelphia desperately wanted changes in their communities, but they felt forgotten and in many cases had nearly given up hope. 

So we worked hard to earn people’s trust. In living rooms, on porches, and in church basements, we would ask people what kind of murals they would like on their walls. Over and over we heard, “This is unbelievable. In this neighborhood, things are done to us or not done at all – no one asks us what we want.” The notion of mural art in communities decimated by blight was an almost revolutionary idea. I remember Ms. Rachel Bagby from 20th and Dauphin telling me, “This community is starved for real beauty – the only visual stimulation we have are billboards, mostly advertising alcohol and tobacco.” 

As we painted murals throughout different neighborhoods, I saw the real social power of art. Here, in areas where the only city workers most people ever saw were the police, we began to deliver “public art as a city service.”  The murals became the first signs of hope on a neglected street or a struggling block. 

Now 3,600 murals later, with more than 30,000 kids served since 1984, with countless adults and communities impacted, with programs in shelters and prisons, a robust after-school and summer program and re-entry program, with projects and initiatives that look at the  nexus of art and economic development, with our examination of muralism in the 21st century which leads us to work with light, sound, new technology as well as developing large civic gateway projects, our philosophy remains the same. We see public art as a partnership between the artist and the community – a creative collaboration expressing the vision of the artist while reflecting the concerns and spirit of the neighborhood. No matter where we are, from southwest to northeast to center city, people talk to us about their histories, their struggles, their hopes and dreams, and their artistic desires.  And through this collective process, the murals take on a purpose far beyond beautification. The murals become catalysts for positive social change inspiring many other actions around education, community, economic development, and beautification.

It has made me so hopeful in spite of the fact that what I see often seems hopeless. I’m inspired every day by the spirit and tenacity of the citizens in the city’s neighborhoods. In spite of great odds, I see optimism, I see collective support, I see love, and I see faith. And I see a hunger for beauty and for art. 

The work has taught me to recognize my own privilege. I see the difference between being born into a suburban, upper middle class family and being born into an economically deprived household in the city, and I look for ways to harness that privilege to assist those with fewer supports. 

I have learned to be less judgmental and more empathetic. For the last four years, we have been offering a mural painting program at Graterford Prison – one of the largest maximum security prisons in the state. I used to think of men in prison as completely “other” – faceless, nameless criminals. But after several years at the prison, working collaboratively with prisoner artists to create murals not only for the interior of the prison, but for neighborhoods, schools and recreation centers throughout Philadelphia, I have come to see the men there as complex human beings – responsible for causing harm, but also capable of doing great good as well, and not so different from you and me. I have come to recognize that in every soul there is the possibility of growth and change, and the potential to contribute to society. And I have seen that art can be a vehicle for connecting people, even across walls and razor wire. 

I have learned most of all to be grateful for the gift of meaningful work. My job is challenging, daunting, and sometimes overwhelming. Resources are scarce and problems are plentiful.  But the artists and staff of the Mural Arts Program consider ourselves incredibly fortunate, because we wake up the morning to do work that we love and that we believe is worth doing. 

In preparing for my talk, I stopped to ask the question “how did I get here?” I thought back to those days in my studio, vaguely unhappy, wondering what to do with my life. I think finding my life’s work was partly luck, and partly determination, but it also had to do with listening to my inner voices, and being open to opportunities that came my way.

Now, as I look out at this impressive group, filled with energy, optimism, and passion, ready to take on the world, I have a few suggestions:

To find your life’s work, remember that you may have to invent your own category.

As you set out in your chosen direction, pay close attention to your own responses and instincts:

It won’t be easy.  It may take time. It may require pushing past obstacles that seem too steep to overcome. It may require financial sacrifice. It may take more than one career. But, believe me, there is nothing more important in life. 

Thank you very much.