In May 2006, the Chester Mural Collective completed its first outdoor mural, facing 2nd St. at 2nd and Edgmont in Chester. The mural was designed by Joseph Church, an artist who was born and raised in Chester and graduated from art school in London. The design speaks to the interaction between past and present in Chester. To represent the city’s long history, it features an old map, as well as an example, from an archival photograph, of Chester’s beautiful architecture. The central figure, a little girl, represents the future.
This project has been in the works for a long time. Anna Elena Torres, a student at Swarthmore College, began the Chester Mural Collective with a grant from the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility. She interned at the Freeman Cultural Arts Complex in Chester during the summer of 2005, where we began holding public meetings to plan the mural. The Chester Hardware and Supply Company generously agreed to provide paint, supplies, and a wall, and the Chester YWCA donated its second floor for use as a studio. We began preparing the mural in January 2006, and it was installed in May 2006. Michelle McIver, a Chester muralist, acted as assistant director on the project.
The mural is painted on panels of “parachute cloth,” a substance that resembles heavy-duty Tyvek® paper. The mural design was traced on the parachute cloth, and then painted in by Chester students. A core group of eight students came several days a week to work on the mural; in addition, a number of student groups came on field trips to help paint. After the mural was painted, a number of Swarthmore College student volunteers glued the mural to the wall using an acrylic gel. The dedication ceremony was held May 27th at the YWCA. It was the students’ decision to dedicate the mural to the mothers of Chester. The completion of this mural is a visible step in the renaissance of the arts in Chester. Public art provides a powerful way for a community to express itself creatively, as well as raising land values, discouraging crime, and increasing community pride.
In the summer of 2006, Michelle McIver stepped up as director and supervised a mural program within the YWCA summer camp. The design, a composite of children’s’ drawings, shows children of different races holding the world in their uplifted hands. The mural is installed on the stairs leading from the first to the second floor in the YWCA. This fall, supported by a grant from the Chester Youth Collaborative, the Chester Mural Collective will be running an after-school program again. We are currently considering a number of sites for our next outdoor mural.