Sacred Spaces

Muralist Eric Okdeh designed and executed Sacred Spaces, a glass mosaic and painted mural for 2 walls on Dickinson Street between Marston and Etting streets in Philadelphia. He worked with several assistants, the Mural Arts Program at SCI Graterford and members of the Mural Arts Reentry Program, students at St. Gabriel’s Hall and St. Gabriel’s School as well as with local youth and residents.
The goal of this project was to bring together young people and members of the community to discuss community issues in the Grays Ferry area using art and poetry as the medium. Topics included what “community” means for the participants, advocacy for safe streets and spaces and how to create a sacred space for community to reflect on the past and look into the future. Reclamation and restoration are the driving themes of this mural.

A “Bottle Tree” workshop was led by artist Homer Jackson. Inspired by the African American tradition of Bottle Trees, which are homemade/handmade sculptures using living and dead trees covered with colorful bottles to protect one’s home from evil, participants wrote messages and placed them in the bottles which were incorporated into the mural. Grays Ferry is a community with a turbulent history and this project was viewed as a community catharsis. The 700 ft. tree spans two walls and is composed of stained glass and bits of colored mirror. It took over 4.5 months to cut and assemble. Ninety glass bottles with enclosed notes are embedded into the tree. The colored mirror symbolizes the neighborhood as it is today, without having to paint it.

Participants also had a workshop with writer, Joseph Blake and were asked to think and write about the meaning of community and what shared memories exist amongst a community and family. Community paint days were organized so that the children and the adults could help paint the mural (paint-by-number). Children and teens from St. Gabe’s School/ Hall, Vision Quest, Graterford inmates, and community members wrote the notes that were preserved in the bottles The spaces between the leaves illustrates stories or poignant ideas from their writings to be read by passers-by. Other writings appear throughout the mural, filling it with discoverable voices to be ‘read.’