In the early 1980s, Jane Golden was running a successful program that helped young people in Los Angeles work off community service hours by painting outdoor murals. After she had been with the program for three years, Golden thought her career was over when she was diagnosed with lupus, a degenerative auto-immune disease that attacks the body’s joints and organs.
“I could barely move my left hand,” she said. “I really had a hard time picking up my paint brush; I thought my career as an artist was over.”
But leaving California and returning to her home on the East Coast presented new opportunities for Golden. In 1984, she found out about Philadelphia’s Anti-Graffiti Network and applied for a part-time position. Now, she heads the city’s Mural Arts Program, and under her direction, the city leads the country in the number of outdoor murals: 1,600 to date, with more than 100 planned for this year.
“Philadelphia is like a huge outdoor museum,” said Golden, 42. “We’re known as the mural capital of the country.”
Some of the murals are visible from afar, like one of the newest, “Common Threads,” painted by local artist Meg Saligman. This mural, eight stories high and quite detailed, is a tribute to Philadelphia high school students.
Hundreds of others are tucked along the city’s side streets, near small parks or empty lots. “Kids in the Land of Giant Vegetables” is a whimsical, colorful mural on the side of a boarded-up grocery store. Near Temple University is a luminous painting of ballplayer Jackie Robinson sliding into home.
“Most of the murals are reflections of their settings,” said Golden, who uses a city car. She oversees works in progress, waving and exchanging retorts with working artists and their young assistants, and she scouts for new walls.
Golden is a fierce advocate for the mural program.
“Murals make art accessible to everyone by taking art out of the confines of museums and galleries and bringing it to the people. Too, it breaks down barriers of class and race. In the type of program I run, mural art offers hope to kids; it offers an alternative to the streets, a way out of what is often a hopeless life situation.”
Philadelphia launched its Anti-Graffiti Network to encourage graffiti artists to “channel their energies and art talents in a more productive, positive direction,” said Golden. When police caught kids painting graffiti, program officials first asked them to sign an amnesty statement, pledging to would refrain from graffiti writing, then assigned them scrub time, cleaning spray paint from walls. Finally, the offenders were allowed to help paint new murals.
“These kids were part of an expendable population,” said Golden. “There are tough neighborhoods — some of them are war zones — and I was moved by how the city was reaching out to people there.”
One Friday night shortly after she had been hired, about a dozen guys showed up at Golden’s door. As they introduced themselves, she recognized most from their graffiti tag names, like “Rock” and “Cat.” Golden hesitated only briefly before inviting all of them inside.
“They came in and went right for my art books, pulling out all the books on abstract expressionism,” she said.
Many of these youngsters had dropped out before high school, but they had learned about art from books they had checked out or stolen from the library. Most had brought Golden their sketch books, so she could see the type of work they were doing.
“They’d learned about drawing from comic books; they had an intuitive sense of color and design,” Golden said.
After talking with the young artists about their work, Golden explained the anti-graffiti program, and before they left her house, all had agreed to sign the pledge and commit themselves to scrub time.
Golden was startled the next day when she left her apartment and realized the walls were filled with the usual graffiti, plus a new tag, “Cool Jane,” written about a dozen times between her home and the office.
“They were so proud of themselves. To them, this was a compliment, a tribute,” Golden said. “I had to explain they’d gotten it all wrong, then I met with them that afternoon to clean up the walls. They all showed up, and we started anew.”
In addition to the mural program, Golden started neighborhood workshops in art education.
“Too many kids attend school where art is not an option anymore,” she said. “I felt like we owed it to the kids, and I couldn’t turn them away.”
By the late 1980s, the mural program was gaining momentum, and Golden developed a process for selecting the neighborhoods for new murals.
“Usually, we would wait for neighborhoods to approach us, then we’d go to community meetings, talk with them about their concerns and their history, and then we would discuss options for the kind of mural they wanted.”
Golden and her painters would not agree to do a mural unless neighborhood leaders pledged to watch and care for the wall. Golden’s crew of 15 former graffiti-writers accompanied her to all the business and community meetings.
“They’d work with me on the larger walls,” Golden said. “Then when they got good, I’d assign them their own larger walls.”
By the early 1990s, Golden began soliciting corporate donations to augment city funding. At that point, the program had a long waiting list, public buildings like community centers as well as private homes and businesses. Golden and her crew solicited financial help wherever they could find it, “everyone from people running hardware stores or selling tires to major corporations like Cigna, Coca-Cola and McDonald’s.”
In 1996, the city restructured the mural program, taking it out of the Anti-Graffiti Network and placing it under the auspices of the Department of Recreation. For Michael DiBernardinis, commissioner of the Philadelphia Department of Recreation, the move was a logical one.
“We see thousands of people every day, so there’s an audience for Jane’s programs. Too, we have the physical buildings to support her art classes.”
Since this administrative shift, the program has gained recognition. Golden thinks this is partially because she had begun commissioning professional artists for many of the projects, and, in part, because of the increased money coming into the program.
One of the most powerful murals in the city was painted in 1997 by Golden herself. In a section of Philadelphia torn by racial strife, she painted a mural 25 feet high and 45 feet wide on the side of a brick rowhouse. It shows 11 hands, of all ages and colors, joined together. The hands are those of neighborhood residents.
“It’s a message of healing,” said Golden. “At first, a lot of the residents were opposed to any sort of murals in the area. Now, they’re coming to me to request other images, more art.”
Other cities are also calling, interested in launching similar programs.
“Last week, we got calls from Texas, North Carolina, California and New Jersey. I just tell them they have to start with a commitment.”
Many of Golden’s original taggers have stayed in touch with her.
“A few went to community college. One became a minister. One has a barbershop,” she said.
For Golden, the mural program has “changed my life and pushed me to think differently about my own problems, including lupus.”
She said she still gets tired, especially when she has spent hours on scaffolding in inclement weather, but the murals give her a sense of purpose.
“Working collectively with a group of people, we can make an impact in the world that’s tangible, visible and lasting,” she said. “It’s reaffirmed my confidence that things can change and people can make a difference. I’ve seen art — always a lifeline for me — become a lifeline for young people and for communities.”
