Independence Mall, Philadelphia

The big news for me has been winning the commission to design and install a mural at the SEPTA 5th Street Independence Hall Station this last September. The project includes the walls on both sides of the station, over 400 running feet. The mural begins above a chair railing level and rises into the coved ceiling, almost 8 feet. The total square footage is over 3000 ft.

The opportunity of this project calls on all of my interests and sensibilities; to speak about history, to connect to our history, and to comment on how history is presented. An example of this in my former work is the series The Myth of the Frontier, where I presented my own version of the settling of the west. To look with humor, and perhaps irreverence, but with a true appreciation of the expansive nature of the experiment that our nation was and is.

On getting the news, my first response was excitement but then mild panic. I had never done anything on this scale, in public or otherwise. I also felt that everything I had done before this was in preparation for this moment.

I, fortunately, have a lot of wonderful friends who have successfully worked on these types of endeavors and were a great recourse for me. In particular, Donald Lipski and Ray and Debbie King. There are many challenges to navigate when you are dealing with an artistic undertaking like this with government or corporate interests. It is a whole different world, one that I’m not very familiar with. My main concern was how to fabricate and install the design.

I was lucky to have been competing in the original call to artists with Ben Volta. Although we were rivals, I was using him as a resource for figuring out how to price and plan the design I was working on. Ben is the guy to talk to when it comes to large scale mural projects. He is one of the earliest players in the technic of using Polytab cloth. The material can be used with photo transfers and painting. It then can be glued to a surface, including brick walls. His company Volta Studio is located in an old Church in the Fairmount area of town. He also has an in-house mural painter, James Shuster, who is a fantastic artist. The combination of Ben with his giant printers and James Shuster’s incredible talents all under one roof has made the whole process seamless.

In preparation for this project I took a tour of the historic district and came across the Second Bank of the United States. Along with a beautiful portrait exhibit there was a permanent installation depicting the astounding Charles Wilson Peale’s Museum. It brilliantly captured this wonderfully ambitious, eccentric undertaking of Peale to put under one roof all knowledge of science, art, and history of mankind at that moment in time. A curator at the National Park Service in Philadelphia, Karie Diethorn, put this exhibition together. I reached out to her and got a personal tour in order to gain a better understanding of the story behind the installation. She talked in-depth about the ideas behind our great experiment in democracy, including enlightenment and the expansive view of mankind that Peale embraced and manifested with his museum. This installation is like a collage of history, much the way my works are developed. I collect images and create compelling scenarios, using what appears as found mementos, a section of a book, part of a painting, a found brochure cover. The combination of these elements helps me to tell a story.

We have been in full production mode over at the Church of Volta. The results have been astounding. The transformation from an idea on a piece of paper to an 8-foot image has been breathtaking.

The actual installation time is still a bit of a mystery especially now with the latest Pandemic. I will keep you posted!

Big thanks to the following people for their generous advice and encouragement:

Marsha Moss
Donald Lipski
Ray and Debbie King
John Grant – Creative Project Management at Public Art Services, Denver Colorado
Chris Krieg – Altitude Murals, Denver
David Guinn – DG Murals, Philadelphia
Kevin Strickland, 
Ben Volta, 
Tristin Lowe – 
RichArt Graphics – Printing and imaging company, Philadelphia

Special thanks to the following people for their great work in seeing this project through to fruition:

Ben Volta and James Shuster – Volta Studio
Wenlu Bao – Presentation design and project management
Richart Graphics – Printing and imaging