Painting a Healthy City
by Josh Spielman
Despite the foreboding weather, last Saturday, May 11, marked a successful kickoff to our 2nd Annual Painting a Healthy City event, a collaboration between the Mural Arts Program and the City of Philadelphia Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services (DBHIDS). Painting a Healthy City celebrates the intersection of public art, public health, and agriculture.
Philadelphia is full of ghost signs, many of them on businesses that are still open. We recently teamed up with Temple's Tyler School of Art to restore a sign at Henssler Locksmith just south of 13th and Girard. The restoration itself was the work of artist Nathaniel Lee.
Our bi-annual newsletter is a labor of love at Mural Arts headquarters. Pretty much everyone pitches in with stories, interviews, photos and revisions. This issue features artists Miriam Singer & Shira Walinsky and their Southeast by Southeast project. Also included is an interview with Yis "NoseGo" Goodwin, updates on What We Sow and a much, much more.
Last week I had the kind of incredible opportunity to sit in on and follow photographer Wing Young Huie as he led a Mural Arts Art Education class in South Philly. Wing was brought in as part of a photography series led by our education staff this year.
His method is to have students present a stranger with the following 6 questions:
Photo by Jack Ramsdale
On Thursday of last week, acclaimed Philadelphia artist Sidney Goodman passed away. He was 77. Today the Inquirer published a fabulous and extensive article about his life and career. One thing that they didn't mention was the series of projects he worked on with Mural Arts. On three separate occasions, we were privileged to work with Mr. Goodman on mural-sized recreations of his work, Boy With Raised Arm.
