Music Mural

Music Mural by artist Barbara Smolen is located in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Painted in 1999 this lively, abstract cityscape was created as part of a community-wide program in Kensington and Fishtown neighborhoods to enhance vacant land. The mural beautifies the party wall that once separated the extant row house from the now-demolished end house.

The mural was a collaboration between Smolen and composer Tina Davidson. Each conducted a month-long workshop (mural-making and music composition) with a 3rd grade class at nearby Hackett Elementary School. The musical notes of Davidson’s composition are incorporated into the mural. The students helped paint the mural, sang the song at the dedication, where they ate a cake frosted with a picture of the mural. “You can’t “see” music,” Smolen said, so she made the design an abstract, but she worked with the jagged outline of the house and used colors found in the [streetscape of the] neighborhood. “Music and art convey community,” Smolen commented.