Work to Ride

Work to Ride by artist David S. Gordon is located in the West Philadelphia neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The mural celebrates the community-based youth prevention program by the same name housed at Chamounix Equestrian Center in West Fairmount Park. The program aids disadvantaged urban youth through constructive activities centered on horsemanship, equine sports and education.

From the artist statement:

This 35’ x 60’ mural highlights the Work to Ride program run by Lezlie Hiner in Fairmount Park. The Work to Ride program allows kids who want to ride horses to work at the barn and work on school work, in exchange for lessons and eventually a place on the polo team.

I wanted to underscore visually how these kids become role models in their community by having a dream, working hard towards an objective and then reaching for that goal. The image of four powerful riders and horses galloping down the street in Philadelphia in pursuit of a polo ball is a symbol for this concept. The polo ball is positioned in a way that it could be construed that the players are reaching for the moon.

The Work to Ride program fielded the first all African-American Polo team in the United States. The imagery of a polo match being played on a local Philadelphia street illustrates the idea that, with purpose and direction, anything is possible.

During the painting of this mural there was a great deal of curiosity from the community regarding the mural’s subject matter. The ongoing conversations and face to face interactions between the neighborhood and the Work to Ride participants and their horses was an important component of the mural process.