Reach for Learning / Reach for Reading

Reach for Learning (sometimes called Reach for Reading) by artist Cesar Viveros is at the William D. Kelley Public School located in the Brewerytown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The mural depicts a scene of children reading, playing, and discovering the world around them. The children depicted in the mural were students in the school’s art class. The background drawings are from drawings made by the students, which illustrate the various subjects learned in school and through reading books (science, nature, animals, math, sports). As part of the mural-making project, students learned to trace the images onto parachute clot and helped paint onto the cloth, as well as painting directly on the lower sections of the wall. A large portrait of a student reading dominates the lower right corner of the mural, suggesting that reading is a gateway to learning about the world they inhabit. The image of stars and galaxies in the upper right corner suggest the limitlessness of knowledge.

The mural was created as part of a five-year mural-making partnership between The School District of Philadelphia and the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program that ran from 2004-2009.