Philly Finito

Finished the Philadelphia chapter. Thanks to my rejiggered schedule, I'm only a day late, instead of eight days. Who says I'm not creative? Came together pretty well; ended it by citing some work from the good folks at Econsult Corporation, who gave a thumbs up to murals as a way to help jazz up commercial districts. The murals that the Philadelphia Mural Arts do are generally more traditional than what say, the TatsCru does in the South Bronx, but really, when you start trying to separate different styles of art into "good" and "bad," I feel like it's trying to pick your favorite blade of grass from the lawn—it's a pointless exercise.

Next up, I plan to highlight the work of the New York Department of Transportation's Urban Arts Program and Groundswell, whose work in New York is similar to the Philly Mural Arts. It's crazy, I can almost see the end in sight.

Oh, and just because Blogger tells you see these things in the admin panel, hello to whoever is reading this blog from Russia! Thanks for checking in!

Finally, remember Espo, the guy who did the Love Train in Philadelphia? You can also find his work in New York City, right in downtown Brooklyn.

Neat, right?

PV

On to the city of Brotherly Love

My chapter on Philadelphia was, according to the schedule I'd mapped out for myself at the beginning of the month, due yesterday. Just started writing it today. I'm not really worried about being a week behind though, because I originally scheduled time for putting together a bone fide web site to show off all the purdy pictures I done collected for this project. Let's just say that's going to be a 2013 project now.

The bulk of this chapter will deal with the work that the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program does, not because they put up graffiti murals per se, but because they're a terrific example of a city that wholeheartedly embraces public art as a way to just plain old make it a better place. It's also a piddly 90 miles away from NYC; thus it's not too hard to relate to if you live in these parts.

And finally, I'd be remiss if I didn't note that Cornbread, the accepted "godfather of graffiti" is from there. NYC might have had Taki 183 in July, 1971, but Cornbread beat him to the publicity punch four months earlier. Specifically, he was featured in the Philadelphia Tribune in March, 1971.

With that little tidbit in mind, here's a picture from one of our visits to Philly, taken while we were aboard the Mural Arts' Love Letter Train Tour, courtesy of Steve Powers, aka ESPO.

Cheers!
PV