What’s Up at 1021 Chestnut Street?

How does this project fit into your body of work? 

Organic imagery and patterning is a part of my work in general, so that’s me bringing my creative self into this project. I have a project that is specifically honed in on that naturalistic inspiration called the Eco Mural Project, and it’s environmentally themed murals that we’re putting up in West Philly and other neighborhoods as well, so that’s a huge part of my work. I think incorporating this beautiful natural imagery with this urban environment is kind of a neat thing to do. And I did a mural for the Kensington Free Library a while ago.

A very different kind of library! 

Definitely. The mural is in the children’s section, and it’s actually a memorial for one of the librarians there that passed away. With this new mural, I’m looking more at the history of the library and I wanted to honor that.

It's almost like a memorial for this library that's not a library anymore. 

That’s actually something that I’ve been thinking about a lot since we started this project, just the fact that libraries are these cultural epicenters and as we become more and more dependent on technology, people are forgetting their importance.

I’m really enjoying this project because it’s bringing light to that. I would have never thought that there was a library there, and then I found out this rich history. This mural shows the exterior of the original library in the early 1950s, with pedestrians walking by and books that span from the early 50s to the late 80s, which is the duration of when the library was opened. It’s like a snapshot of the library’s history.

The Mercantile Library mural was funded by Brickstone Companies.