Renderings Provided by The City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program
With an announcement Monday afternoon by the Philadelphia 2016 Host Committee, chaired by former Pennsylvania Governor and Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell, news spread that Broad Street would be beautified in advance of the Democratic National Convention (July 25-28). On North Broad, between Race Street and JFK Boulevard, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society will install 52 planters on both sides of Broad Street from City Hall to the Pennsylvania Convention Center. The Center City District will install a temporary red, white, and blue lighting array that will face south and illuminate City Hall from dusk to 4 a.m. July 23 to 28.
But South Philly’s getting some love, too. Along South Broad Street from City Hall to Washington Avenue, “a mile-long temporary mural on the raised median will serve as a vibrant gateway between City Hall and South Philadelphia during the Convention,” according to a release. The City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program will install “14 Movements: A Symphony in Color and Words” by Philadelphia artist and former South Philadelphian Mat Tomezsko.
“We are thrilled to be able to refurbish part of one of the city’s main thoroughfares for our residents and visitors,” Rendell said.
“The 14 Movements mural on South Broad will bring bold color and energy to one of the liveliest streets in Philadelphia and will demonstrate to the nation, and to the world, that our city is one that champions the value of beauty in public space,” Jane Golden, executive director of the Mural Arts Program, said.
The Knight Foundation kicked in money for the mural’s installation, and the Foundation’s program director, Patrick Morgan, said “the mural leverages an important event to improve public space in Philadelphia and add to our city’s vibrancy.”
Though Tomezsko calls Fishtown home, he recently spent three years in South Philly on the 1700 block of South Seventh Street and then at 18th and Mifflin streets. He also had a creative home at a studio in the Italian Market off League Street above a butcher shop.
“It was such an amazing place to spend time there just daydreaming and working on paintings – it was really quite magical,” he recalled.
The painter and poet studied both disciplines with an interdisciplinary bent at Temple University after graduating from St. Joseph’s Preparatory School. It’s exactly that combination that “14 Movements” celebrates – he’ll be working with Philadelphia poet laureate Yolanda Wisher and her book of poetry, “Monk Eats an Afro.”
“I’m super-thrilled to be working with her; she’s such a wonderful artist and poet,” Tomezsko said. “I’m taking it as source material and abstracting it.”
It’s a bright, multi-colored mural that will be attached to the median on durable vinyl and sealed by a clear acrylic sealant.
“It wont’ be slippery, it’ll be grippy,” the artist explained.
The all-weather and walked-on aspect of this installation inspires him, too.
“Part of me is thinking it’s really cool because it will get worn down as people use it. If people love it, they can literally touch and walk on it and if they hate it they can spit on it – there’s something really exciting about that,” Tomezsko said.
A funny parenthetical aside in an Inquirer piece about the news says “no word yet on whether parking will continue on the median further south on Broad during the convention.” The artist said that, in his first trips to measure the space and get a sense of the physical specifics, “looking south, it’s just nothing but cars.”
The idea for the mural was actually born out of his collaboration with PHS on one of its first pop-up gardens at 19th and Walnut streets.
“The project went nowhere until it was unearthed by the DNC, and I found myself back in action and looking at my old ideas from years ago,” he added.
Wisher’s text, Tomezsko said, is a cyclical reflection on being a daughter, being an African-American woman, African-American cultural realities, and then having a daughter herself and the ongoing circle of life. He says it will be “around for eight weeks” and will be fully revealed just before the Convention begins.
Contact Staff Writer Bill Chenevert at bchenevert@southphillyreview.com or ext. 117.
Renderings Provided by The City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program
