Paulo Freire Freedom School Mural

I was recently invited to facilitate a mural with Kristin Bloom’s students at the Paulo Freire Freedom School in Tucson, AZ. This is a very unique school with a focus environmental and social justice curriculum. It’s a busy place with active parent and community involvement. The school is truly a living testimony to work of the great Brazilian popular educator Paulo Freire (1921-97).

Many thanks to the Tucson YMCA “It’s Time to Talk Youth Forum” for sponsoring this beautiful mural located in the stairwell. Congratulations to the 13 students artists on a successful project!

The students will report on this mural project in their own words.

Paulo Freire Freedom School Mural

“The theme of the mural is breaking down the walls of prejudice and becoming one. A giant mural focusing on peace.

On the left of the mural, two different races are split between a big wall. The brick wall is how we are separated by racism. The heart with the flames represents love falling to bind the whites and the blacks together, bounded by love. Love breaks down the wall of hate and brings us together.

The people represent segregation and the heart is supposed to be crashing down on the wall so it lets the people be together. The people in robes represent how all the cultures came together

The middle one has everyone at Kiva and the pole in the middle is supposed to be everyone coming together into the world.

All the colors blend together and all the major problems were finally solved. The love for each other is painted onto the wall. Our Kiva brings us together. Creating roots to a wonderful world. Kiva itself is a miracle, and all of us together in peace and love. A strong wall, but only love can break it down. One whole community coming together. No one fighting or anything. Everyone at Kiva being one big kind and caring diverse community. No segregation, only integration.

In the third section, there are two faces kissing. The faces are light "white" and dark "black" coffee being poured from Chinese and Native American style cups. On the tea cup the man in the maze is painted on it and the man in the maze is the symbol of the tribe Tohono O’odham in Arizona. The blue teacup is an illustration of a Chinese teacup. It represents different ethnicities coming together and meeting peacefully. No color or person is better. "

Hello Tucson, Hello Philadelphia Murals: Part One

Exchanges among students have been greatly enhanced by technological advances. With cell phones, laptops, and digital cameras we can communicate with anyone in the world. In this project we are taking advantage of these devices by creating a cross country dialogue among young artists attending Kirkbride Elementary School in Philadelphia, PA and Drexel Elementary in Tucson, AZ. Students have created written, recorded and painted descriptions of their respective communities. I asked students to describe themselves, their school, their neighborhood and what was unique about their city. All this information was compiled to be used as reference material for a mural at each school. Students will get to see their work in on permanent display on the other side of the country. In addition to being a great arts project we are also learning about the cultural and ecological diversity of the United States, geography and social studies.


Hello Tucson Video - "In my neighborhood"


Hello Philadelphia Video - "In my neighborhood"

Last week I worked on the Tucson mural with students during the annual Arts Day. This amazing school wide arts festival immerses students in a day long exploration of the arts in a variety of media. The school principal Mrs. Escarcega (Mrs. E.) gave us gifts to bring back to the students in Philadelphia, as well as music and peacock feathers.

Drexel Elementary School is one of only 12 schools in Arizona who received the 2007 A + Exemplary Program Award for its Arts Day Extravaganza. This awards a testimony to the dedication of Arts Day coordinator Lupe Pressey and the school Principal Mrs. E.. Arts day features dance, music, story telling and visual arts. It is certainly a model for other school looking for ways to bring the arts into their schools.

The design for the Tucson mural features a central panel that I designed based on input from school staff, with the students images in the borders. The finished mural is on display in the library it celebrates the wonder of libraries, and the worlds that can be opened by books.

When I returned to the Philadelphia classroom I brought gifts of T-Shirts, music and images from Tucson. The kids watched in fascination as the Tucson students introduced themselves.

The project now continues with a mural in Philadelphia, that I’ll be reporting on in a few weeks.

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Philadelphia Freedom School Banner

In this project I worked with twenty 9-11 year old students from the Philadelphia Freedom Summer School to create a participatory banner over a series of eight 2 hour sessions through the Fleisher Art Memorials Community Arts Partnership Program. This summer school enrichment program emphasizes cultural democracy and history through story telling, dance and visual art.

When I started working with this group they though of visual art as “being different", "drawing anything” or said they didn’t know anything. Some of them had art in their schools others had little to no formal art making experiences. Several were particularly resistant.

Over the weeks I struggled to keep the kids engaged and teach them a few solid skills. I know I was being successful when the room was silent and everyone on task if even for a few minutes. Even the camp counselors and the children who had been resistant were enchanted by the paint and pencils once they had a basic understanding of the elements or art.

On the last day I asked what they now know about visual art. They responded: “ I learned the colors’ shades and hues and that my teacher is a colorfully vivid person”. “I’ve learned perspective; one point, atmospheric, eye, worm and bird view”. “I learned that black and white can make different colors of gray”, “How to draw people, bodies, places and roads. I had a great teacher”. “That it was fun for me, doing the mural”, “when you do art you can look at it for many perspective”. All the children said they learned about primary and secondary colors, value and perspective.

We discussed and illustrated the connection between the individual and community through individual drawings, portraits of each other and journal drawings. The connection of their community to the community at large was illustrated through the creation of the banner/mobile mural. Finally the connection to the world was made through drawings of our hands that will be brought to Malawi in Africa by Philadelphia University professor Wendy Anderson as part of the ”Hands Across the Water” community arts project.

While this was a short unit it was very successful and I was asked to teach again with the program. Something I look forward to doing. The banner will be on display at the Philadelphia Freedom School offices and other locations about Philadelphia.

The Pride of Feltonville Community Mural

Click on any image to enlarge

Mural Size: 90’ x 26’ (taller area is 36’)

Location: Feltonville School for Arts and Sciences, 210 E Cortland St. Philadelphia, PA

Sponsors: School District of Philadelphia
Assistant: Erika Matyok
© 2007 City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program/ Michael Schwartz


















“The Pride of Feltonville Mural” embodies the spirit of the neighborhood surrounding the Feltonville School of Arts and Science. I worked with 20 students from the school, their art teacher Trina Brand and my assistant Erika Matoyk. Over the eight weeks we researched the history and theme of the mural; arts and science.

Following colonization Feltonville was primarily a farming community. Fruit trees still volunteer themselves in peoples backyards and along the streets. The school sits between an old factory and a graveyard. The graveyard extends for many acres and is lined with trees. It's a peaceful hilly place. The factory, whose owner Bruce came out one day to introduce himself and compliment the mural, said he was down to a handful of workers. This was once a thriving industrial area. Immigrants poured into the area building track homes and opening hosiery's. Small factories and mills produced clothing, refrigerators and other appliances. Many of the immigrants were Jewish and at least one synagogue was in the area. To depict this I included the Tree of LIfe with the five chakras, as well as King Solomon's Knot - a symbol of wisdom. German, Italian, Irish and English immigrants also populated the area during it’s early history. Now the area is home to immigrant families from Latin America, the Middle East and Asia. The mural depicts the spirit of immigrants working to improve the lives of their children. A figure in the sky, painted in browns and blues represents past generations, the hands are extended, wearing workers gloves. From the hands leap their offspring jumping into open books.

To depict the sciences we decided to depict a student investigating the nature around her. She holds up a magnifying glass amidst a field of insects and flowers. We see several areas that are enlarged to show the interior of plants; Water Carriers, Stiffeners, Class Chlorophyceae and Light Catchers. Students are learning the same information in their science classes. Students also added some of their own imagery to the bottom of the mural including a quetzal, an elf, flowers and insects.

The largest figure in the mural is of a young woman holding a basket of peaches, she has gathered the harvest from the place she lives. This figure is the symbol of youth who go to school and live in the area, who have grown up in this place for some period of time. She suggests that if we get to know and cherish things about the places we live, to look at the small miracles all around us, we can raise to great things. Our dreams can come true, if we work hard and take stock of what is right in front of us. It is then that we can find bounty in our lives, be able to share, grow and learn. Appropriate for a place of learning and friendship.

I think that murals help to define a place. They can become landmarks. I’ve tried in this mural to keep the composition simple, accessible and the narrative universal. The meaning can change with time. The color and space in the mural suggest an inner world of the mural, there are spaces that recede, but much of the subject matter appears to be in a fishbowl - pushed up against the picture plane. The idea here is that the school is in many ways an insulated institution - a safe place where students can learn and make friends in relative peace.

I like to have the community get their hands dirty. In addition to the students involvement in the design process and adding their own touches to the mural we had a community paint day (see below). Over 65 people were involved. People were wonderful during this project; the staff, students, faculty and neighbors. I think this will be a mural that has a long and cherished life in this unique Philadelphia neighborhood.