About the Project 

The mural is entitled The Color of Your Voice and represents a partnership between Mural Arts, Project HOME, the Hank Gathers Rec Center, and the Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual DisAbility Services. The mural design incorporates perspectives on community resilience, history, and individual strengths and challenges. The mural design draws from poetry created by community members in weekly Porch Light workshops at Hank Gathers Rec Center between October 2011 and May 2012. The poem on the left side of the mural uses lines and phrases from numerous poems created in workshops while the vivid Kente cloth on the right side of the mural is a translated version of the poem in color-form. In addition to illustrating community-created poetry about strength and resilience, the mural intends to spark dialogue about how a clean environment contributes to a healthy state of mind by incorporating found objects into the actual mural. The mural is a part of Mural Arts Philadelphia’s Porch Light Initiative – an initiative striving to improve the health of individuals and communities through human connection and art – and is a reflection of the creativity and effort put forth by Porch Light program participants, artists Ernel Martinez, Keir Johnston, Nina “Lyrispect” Ball, and Perry “Vision” Divirgilio and over 250 community members at and around Project H.O.M.E. and the Hank Gathers Rec Center who supported the work.