Learning for Life

Learning for Life by artist Nathaniel Lee was an interior mural created in a year-long collaboration between the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program and Center for Literacy (CFL), a non-profit organization that has championed the transformative power of literacy since 1968. The mural depicted adult literacy as “the golden key that unlocks opportunity and success.” Like all Mural Arts projects, it was designed and painted with community involvement throughout the process. CFL’s mural was installed in an interior classroom in a building that previously housed CFL’s headquarters.

In the mural, vignettes illustrate the many ways CFL positively impacts the lives of individual Philadelphians and their communities. The models who posed include actual CFL graduates who have achieved academic and workplace success, as well as a dedicated volunteer, a student-turned-Board member and two members of the staff. All of the scenes are depicted just beyond a grand doorway, unlocked by the golden key of literacy, which is rendered in real 22-karat gold leaf paint. The scenes include:
• a mother writing a letter to her soldier son, off in a war zone
• immigrants proudly swearing the oath of new citizenship
• a carpenter on the job
• a young woman sharing a storybook with an enthusiastic child, and that same woman in a desk job as a supervisor
• an astronaut, exploring the farthest reaches of human possibility

Staff and Executive Board members spent two days applying background color for the 8 x 28-foot long artwork, which was designed and completed over the winter, spring and summer of 2012 by artist and Mural Arts Crew Leader Nathaniel Lee. Project Manager Jocelyn Nelson coordinated the community involvement that accompanies all Mural Arts projects, leading up to the artwork’s installation inside the largest classroom, which was sponsored by Firstrust Bank.

Location Note: Mural no longer on view at this location (office closed/moved in 2021). This was an interior mural.