The Doors of Destiny are in Your Hands

The Doors of Destiny are in Your Hands is a mural by Angela Ortiz located in the Fairhill neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The artist conducted brainstorming sessions with the ArtWorks! and Congreso de Latinos Unidos communities around the concept of doors opening and closing, as a metaphor for opportunity/lack of opportunity. The mural depicts three doors. The first door symbolizes the past, and includes images of family. The second door symbolizes the present, and includes images of what it is like to live as an inner-city youth. The third door symbolizes the future, and includes an image of a bridge, with figures walking toward the bridge to the future. ArtWorks! youth participated in brainstorming sessions, and painted part of the mural on parachute cloth.

As Ortiz explains: “The whole idea about the doorways is that they represent past, present, and future. I didn’t want happy-go-lucky imagery. I wanted anybody who sees that mural to get a hint that the decisions you make will affect your life. In a lot of our conversations, we were talking about, ‘What do you want to close the door on? Violence and drugs? What do you want to open the door to? Happiness? Success?’ But another question was, ‘When have you felt that the door was closed to you?’”

This is the first of three murals at the site, installed on the east side of the building. It was extended in 2015, at the same time The Power of Positivity was added to the building’s south wall.