The Jewelry Box

Artists Delia King and Brad Carney worked with inmates and reentry workers to create The Jewelry Box at Towey Playground in Philadelphia’s Lower Kensington neighborhood. Apprentices in The Guild program learn basic art skills, earn scaffolding certification, and develop job readiness skills through a series of workshops. Their work transformed the playground, a center of neighborhood life and meeting point for various cultures.

Artist Statement:
This four-sided mural project involves traditional mural painting, glass mosaic, and wood refinishing. The two main walls are arced bordered with a curved dark wood beam. The brick walls are painted with an abstract, art deco inspired design, accented with large glass mosaics. The bright colored design follows a sweeping motion along the west side of the building connecting the front and the back with bold pink stripes. These curl up into concentric circles at their ends, forming focal points. The inside of the circles have smaller circles drawn to give the appearance of gradated color. The background on the front and back recalls a skyscape, with the North Wall borrowing colors from daybreak and the South Wall implying a sunset. The shapes for the background are triangles drawn on the 45-degree angle, which deconstructs into simple green stripes along the East Wall connecting the larger walls.

There are four glass mosaics. Two are 20’ “belts” and two are 4’ medallions. The belts are black, silver and gold, constructed on three layers with a central diamond band surrounding a pink and gold glass.

The theme of the project was found in the community meeting when Delia and Brad asked those present from the neighborhood, “What would you like to feel like when you walk away from the mural?” The feeling of the neighborhood being a “calm chaos” was expressed by a new resident artist living across the street. The neighbors discussed the history of their community with the struggles and hardships they have faced, some going back four generations in the same house. The Towey Rec Center was always the heart of the neighborhood, where the good and the bad come to play, so they wanted to see a mural that defined the new life being infused into the area. CAPA, an arts-based high school newly built one block away, and a community of artists living across the street in warehouses lining the Rec Center, symbolize a neighborhood in positive transition.

Delia and Brad also had to consider that the mural was being created for the Philadelphia Prison Program. Mural Arts created “The Guild” in which projects are created to give job skills and job training to these young people who show a desire to change themselves and the neighborhoods they have affected. This mural was to show their movement, motion, a sense of balance, and a sense of purpose, which represents the mission of “The Guild.”

Combining these contexts, the mural is called “The Jewelry Box.”