Tree of Life (My North Philly: Nicetown)
The two walls at Nicetown Park are bound by the themes of nature and color selection (secondary colors: purple, orange, and green). The materials used include metallic gold acrylic paint and mosaic from broken colored glass.
The artist describes the mural in his artist statement:
“This mural was designed as a site of public memory. Stories were collected from residents, as well as feedback from the neighborhood, so that together they could engage in a process of cultural democracy. The intent of the design is to provide a place to elaborate on and share a collective identity to forge common futures.
“[This wall] is anchored at the center by a symbolic, “TREE OF LIFE” which is common to all cultures and connects to the theme of the ceramic tiles created by the community. In the mural, ceramic tiles made during community workshops are integrated with the tree—creating a ‘family tree’ representative of Nicetown. Overhead, images from the legacy of the historic Stenton Mansion (ca. 1730) one of the earliest and best preserved Colonial Houses in the United States (suggested by Mr. Richard Harris) reveals the heroic legacy of local heroes in the area- embodied through the story of Dinah. Portraits are depicted in Chinese ceramic plates and horses in the clouds represent the Stenton stables. Underneath, a panorama of gardens reflect the story of how neighborhood blocks in the area during the 1960’s held lawn contests.
“Communities form from people collectively sharing their visions, resources, and efforts in the shared hope for the future. This mural is intended to designate a ‘sense of place’, for telling stories and building community, a place of reflection, a place of remembrance-fortifying all that is essential to develop and thrive in a contemporary urban environment-inviting the first step towards compassionate interaction.”
This mural is pat of the My North Philly project that traced the stories of four communities — Nicetown, Kensington, el Norte de Filadelfia, Strawberry Mansion — in North Philadelphia through the oral histories that inspired the creation of seven landmark murals. At the beginning of 2005, the Mural Arts Program began a new odyssey. The My North Philly project aimed to collect the stores that residents of North Philadelphia told about their neighborhoods and to give those words a lasting life through a series of murals. Out of the myriad North Philadelphia neighborhoods, four communities –two east and two west of Broad Street — were chosen with an eye to the history and diverse experiences of the area and Mural Arts established partnerships with neighborhood churches, libraries, resident associations, and community groups. Over the next three years, artists and oral historians from the Program reached out to folks in these communities, taped and transcribed oral histories and group discussions, and pored over the themes, images, and events that interviewees described. By autumn of 2007, seven murals had been painted, one final mural was in progress, and more than ninety North Philadelphians had told their stories — the stories of their North Philly. Though neither the people who told their stories nor the murals that those stories inspired speak for all of North Philly, they capture, in a personal way, some of the lived experiences of the place that many Philadelphians just call “home.”