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noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 03:46:00 +0000

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My Work in a New Mural Book

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 04:28:00 +0000

One morning in March I woke to find an email to my website, it was from a man named Kiriakos Iosifidis. Kiriakos is one of the creators of Carpe Diem, a magazine chronicling public art in Athens, Greece. Click here to view the website of the Magazine.

Kiriakos had put out a book on public art from all over the globe. He was looking to update and release a second edition and wanted me to be one of the many new artists that would appear. I submitted some hi-res photos and an artist bio, and waited to see the result.

I received word that the book came out in the beginning of December, and I purchased a number of copies in time for the holidays.

The book titled Mural Art #2: Murals on Huge Public Surfaces Around the World from Graffiti to Trompe L'Oeil (ISBN#: 3939566276) is an ambitious collection of artists, and its an honor to be a part of it. There are a great number of Philadelphia Muralists featured within. This book does a great job of portraying the Mural Arts Program and its Artists as a true movement in the arts, and its humbling and fascinating to see how we fit in with public art across the globe.

Here is the Amazon link to the book, as of this post there is a sale...

Citywide Installation: The Gallery at Market East

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 02:16:00 +0000

The Citywide Mural was taken down on October 11th from 30th Street, and a few weeks later was reinstalled in a new location at the Gallery just inside the 9th and Market St entrance.

As it turns out, the mural found a home on a wall that was big enough to accommodate all the sections in their proper order. Our thinking for months was that the mural would be divided into seven sections and distributed throughout the gallery, in fact the design itself was created around the fact that it would eventually be in seven equal parts. We're all thrilled that we can get one final look at the entire mural. Its going to be up for a long time as well. Last I heard it may still be there through the holidays and into January! Between The Gallery and 30th St, the mural has found an incomprehensibly vast audience.

There is going to be another event as well. On Wednesday December 9th at 11am there will be an event held on site at the Gallery to rededicate the mural and announce the list of permanent host sites for many of the mural's sections. With any luck the event will help find a permanent home for any final panels that remain.

Big thanks go out to Kathryn Ott Lovell, Deborah Zuchman, and Cheryl Durgans of the MAP Staff for finding the time to take on the unenviable task of managing the remainder of this project, and finding it various homes throughout the city.

Oh yeah, and before I forget, here is a link to a WHYY interview with Peter Crimmins that aired the day of the Dedication at 30th St.

WHYY Peter Crimmins Interview

Click Photos to view Slideshow

30th St Dedication Photos

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:20:00 +0000

The Citywide Mural was officially dedicated at 30th St Station on September 25th. The event was well attended, despite the early 2pm start time. The crowd was filled with familiar faces of the people who volunteered their time during the workshops and paint days.

I wish I could remember the names of all the people who got up to speak during the ceremony, and the specific name of the choir that performed, but almost two months have passed between the dedication and right now. I'm lucky I found some time to post.

What I can remember is that the event was overwhelming, but in a good way. We got a lot of positive vibes from the crowd, and a lot of praise for the job that we did. The music from the choir filled the entire building, everything seemed larger than life. The staff at Mural Arts really outdid themselves putting this event on, I can honestly say it was the best dedication I've ever had.

That night Michelle, Kien, Myself and a few friends went to Yakitori Boy, rented a karaoke room and celebrated. I'm going to miss working with those guys, we worked together well as a team. Hopefully this wont be the last time we collaborate.

Click any thumbnail to view slideshow
all photographs by Mike Reali

30th Street Installation!

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 02:08:00 +0000

The Citywide Mural is up and can be seen up close in the North Waiting Room of 30th St Station.

Kien and I set everything up for the Stagehands Union to hang, all in all the process took 3-4 hours. Peter Crimmins of WHYY was on hand to interview us for a segment that will air Friday morning. Ill post the audio when I get it.

Dedication Friday at 2pm!

click for expanded view

Citywide Mural Completion and Dedication

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 18:03:00 +0000

Mural Dedication: This We Believe City-wide Mural Project

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 25 · 2:00 - 3:00 PM
30TH STREET STATION
NORTH WAITING ROOM

Celebrate the Mural Arts Program's first Philadelphia-wide mural project, a cornerstone initiative of the 25th Anniversary Celebration! This We Believe was created by artists Eric Okdeh, Michelle Ortiz and Kien Nguyen through eight months of community forums, a public vote, and community paint days to create a collective work that expresses the beliefs of the city.

This project was made possible by the support of: The Sunoco Founation, WHYY, LEADERSHIP Philadelphia, Penn Project for Civic Engagement, Philadelphia Daily News, 6abc, Philly.com, IATSE, Amtrak at 30th Street Station, PREIT and the Gallery at Market East.

Call 215.888.9166 or e-mail events@muralarts.org for more information.

The Citywide Mural titled Living in the Presence of History was completed in studio earlier this week, following an intense 6 weeks of painting and tying together all of the work from the 7 paint workshops and the men from my SCI Graterford Mural class. We've had well over 300 volunteers take part in the murals painting and it was up to my teammates Kien, Michelle and I to bring the work together and make it seamless.

We took a photo of our progress every 15 minutes and I created this video out of the shots.

The final remaining paint days open to the public took place over 3 days

North Philadelphia
Saturday, July 11 · 10:00 am - 1:00 pm
The ARC/PDDC, 2350 West Westmoreland Street

South Philadelphia
Saturday, July 18 · 10:00 am - 1:00 pm
Columbus Square, 12th and Wharton

Southwest Philadelphia
Saturday, July 25 · 10:00 am - 1:00 pm
Myers Recreation Center, 5800 Chester Avenue

The following thumbnails were from those dates. Thank you to everyone who volunteered their time and spent an afternoon with us painting this massive mural.

Click any Thumbnail to begin the slideshow

The Anthropologie Mural Installations

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 00:19:00 +0000

I'm a bit late in posting this, but I wanted to get some photos up of the installations of our Anthropologie Mural, which hung in two separate spaces during the past few months. Initially it was installed and dedicated in the gallery space at the Anthropologie Store in Rockefeller Center, NYC. This was the location the mural was designed to fit in.

The opening was held on May 6th, and the mural remained up until June 20th. Kien and I along with Jane and the Corps staff brought the students of both classes to NYC. We somehow got everyone to actually board buses at Love Park at 6am! I still cant believe it all went off without a hitch. Once we arrived the Anthropologie staff was on hand with coffee, juice, and breakfast for the event. Everyone was thrilled with how things turned out, all in all it was a great day.

Click the thumbnails to view the slideshow of images of the mural and the dedication.

At the end of the exhibit, the mural was taken down and shipped to the Urban Outfitters Headquarters at the Navy Yard in Philadelphia. There is a large cafeteria space in one of the buildings, within that space a wall was specially built for exhibitions. Kien and I were onhand to install the project again. Its actually still up in the space and the building is open to the public.

Click the thumbnails to view the images

Click Thumbs to view Video

There may or may not be a closing reception, I am still waiting to hear. It will be difficult to organize both groups for a trip at this point as the school year is ended and everyone has gone in separate directions. Two of my graduating students are now interns with Mural Arts, and some others have stayed to be involved in the Mural Corps Summer Program.

SPEAKING OF WHICH....
I've recently been hired to maintain the blogs of all 8 Mural Corps sites this summer. I will be traveling to all eight sights once a week gathering information, photos and video for the website...

http://www.muralcorps.org

This is my first official contracted web job! There will be updates every single week starting Monday.

I'm glad to still be involved with the students in some capacity this summer. I officially left Mural Corps after 6 years of teaching this June to focus more on my murals. Shari Hersh (the head of Mural Corps)Louise, Noni, and Shelby (the Corps Staff) contacted old students of mine from the past 6 years and threw me an awesome barbecue. Ill really miss the classroom and the students, but I feel the timing was right. I had 4 seniors this year, all of them on to bigger and better things in the fall, and I couldn't have ended with a better project. The Anthropologie Mural (officially titled "Styles May Vary") was an unbelievably high note to go out on.

Our Citywide Mural Paintdays and Progress

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:24:00 +0000

We are officially halfway through our paintdays for the Citywide Mural!
Things have been extremely busy throughout the past month and a half (thats why I havent been able to update much), for now I'll focus on Citywide....

The Paint days kicked off with Wall Ball 2009. We brought a single 5'x15' panel for people to paint during the cocktail hour. We even got to meet Jane Seymour at the event, but she didn't get to paint anything

I was cut out of the photo, most likely because I had a beer in my hand... and I was sweating profusely (not because of nervousness, but because the lights we were under were like heatlamps)

Since then we've had 4 total paint days that saw a total of over 300 volunteers working on the first two sections of the mural; dubbed the "industry" and "History" sections.
During our last paint day on July 1st, hundreds of volunteers came out to participate, thankfully we had more than enough work to go around. The Mayor even stopped by to paint.

Peter Crimmons of WHYY and a Cameraman from Univision were on hand to record and interview my teammates and myself along with the volunteers. I will post links when they become available.

We've been covered again in the Inquirer, that story can be found here.

...Finally here are some photos of the paint days, and below the thumbnails some video of the sheer madness of the Sunoco Welcome America turnout...

Click any Thumbnail to begin the slideshow

also... here is the info for the remaining paint days... come out and be a part of it!!

"This We Believe" Paint Days

North Philadelphia
Saturday, July 11 · 10:00 am - 1:00 pm
The ARC/PDDC, 2350 West Westmoreland Street

South Philadelphia
Saturday, July 18 · 10:00 am - 1:00 pm
Columbus Square, 12th and Wharton

Southwest Philadelphia
Saturday, July 25 · 10:00 am - 1:00 pm
Myers Recreation Center, 5800 Chester Avenue

Team One WINS!

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Tue, 26 May 2009 17:10:00 +0000

Our Team's design has officially won the first ever Citywide Mural Competition! Massive thanks to everyone who voted and to those people who reached out and spread the news of the project and our design to friends and family. There are literally too many to list right here, but I will make my way around to thanking all of you personally. Over 4500 votes in total were cast. We could not have done it without your support!

I also want to thank my teammates Michelle and Kien for being equally as obsessive and working hard to make this design a possibility.

View Michelle Ortiz' work here.

Much respect to Team Two (David Guinn, Phillip Adams, and Damon Reaves) whom Ive known and worked alongside for years.

Team one

Click design to Enlarge

Since receiving news of our win, there has been some press.

Valerie Russ of the Daily News wrote two articles on the project. The first taking place during the voting and the second after our design was chosen.

Article One
Article Two

Peter Crimmins of WHYY interviewed my team after news of the win. There's audio of that somewhere; Ill update this post when I find it. For now, here is a link to the article he wrote.

WHYY Write-up

Peter's article lists the scheduled Citywide Paint days where we will have prepared sections of our mural that anyone (regardless of skill level, or age) can participate in helping us paint. These are great events to bring the kids out to. They are as follows...

Sunday, June 21 at the Allens Lane Art Center, 601 W. Allens Lane, 10 am – 1 pm.

Saturday, June 27 at the John Perzel Community Center, 2990 St. Vincent Street, 10 am – 1 pm.

Sunday, June 28 at Wall St. International, 1431-39 N. 52nd Street, 10 am – 1 pm.

Wednesday, July 1 during Sunoco Welcome America! in all four city squares simultaneously from 1 – 3 pm:

*Rittenhouse Square, 18th and Walnut Street
*Logan Circle, 19th Street and Benjamin Franklin Parkway
*Washington Square, 7th and Walnut Streets
*Franklin Square, 6th and Race Streets

Saturday, July 18 at Colombus Square, 12th and Wharton, 10 am - 1 pm.

Saturday, July 11 at The ARC/PDDC, 2350 West Westmoreland Street, 10 am – 1 pm.

Additional paint days will be scheduled in Southwest Philadelphia.

For more information on the paint days please visit

www.muralarts.org/thiswebelieve or call 215-685-0729.

The finished mural will be hung temporarily in two central locations in Philadelphia: first in the North Waiting Room at 30th Street Station and then the Gallery at Market East. At the end of the exhibition, pieces of the mural will be installed in neighborhoods all over the city. In late September, the mural will receive a final dedication, celebrating the culmination of the 25th Anniversary.

Please come out, and thanks again for participating!

VOTE TEAM ONE!

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Tue, 05 May 2009 16:13:00 +0000

Voting for the Citywide Mural Competition has officially begun! Anyone can vote online for our design on all of the following three sites.

Click on the links below to vote

MuralArts.org

6ABC

philly.com

If we win, the final Mural which stands at a whopping 30ft x 105ft will be hung at 30st Station for a month, and then broken up in seven pieces and hung at the Gallery at Market East for another month. In the end the mural will be further divided and installed in locations around the city accompanied by a plaque showing the full design and credits.

Mock-up of the 30th St. Station Installation

Team Statement:
Philadelphia is a city where past and present co-exist.
Our mural design evokes an awareness of our city's history through archival photographs, poetry and personal stories from everyday people that live in the city.
Our goal was to portray nostalgia and memory along with the evolving nature of the people and neighborhoods.

The design shows visions of history, industry, identity, diversity, community, social activism, struggle, survival and progress that are relevant to the the Philadelphia experience.
Overall, we reflected the triumphs and hardships that make Philadelphians unique and resilient.

I must say that this is the most work I've ever put into one of my mural designs. Our team worked tirelessly on creating a mural layered with meaning, infused with individual stories, informed by the voices of the participants, and history. In the end our mural provides the viewer with a wealth of stories, and new discoveries in its imagery.

... now for some closeups. (Needs Flash to view... download it here

Click on a Panel for a larger view

Detail Slideshow

If you're left wondering what this competition is all about here is a blurb from the project managers at Mural Arts.

In celebration of twenty-five years of art education, mural-making and working in communities, the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program invites you to participate in our first city-wide mural project.

Centered around the theme "This We Believe," this initiative has provided an opportunity for people throughout the city to share what they believe about Philadelphia. Community forums held and facilitated in neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia, and attended by two teams of artists, gave voice to the audiences. The two teams of artists listened, researched and interpreted what they heard and distilled their responses in these two mural designs. It is now your chance to vote on your favorite design. The winning mural will become the canvas for a series of community paint days throughout June and July. The finished mural, painted on over 2500 sq. feet of cloth, will be temporarily installed in 30th Street Station and then at the Gallery at Market East.

The winning mural will be announced the week of May 18th.

Community Paint Days will be held throughout the city in June and July. All are welcome! Specific dates and locations will be announced along with the winning mural.

Please Vote Team One!

Citywide Press Conference

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 14:56:00 +0000

Press Conference tomorrow at 3pm....

Thomas Eakins House... 1729 Mt Vernon St...

Our month of hard work unveiled to the public, teams will get their first glimpse of each others designs...

Final design review just ended... lots of positive vibes and smiles...

now sleep....

so tired

Busiest. Month. Ever.

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 20:40:00 +0000

Its pretty hard to believe that its been more than a month since Ive updated this thing, especially considering all of the posts I could have made about mural events and related craziness.

I'm almost at the end of one of the busiest craziest months ever. All month long I have been hard at work with Michelle Ortiz and Kien Nguyen on our "This We Believe" citywide Mural design. I cant really post much on this yet as we are still in competition. The designs will be presented to the press on the 30th and the online voting happens between May 4th-18th. I personally have never put so much work into one of my designs before, its enormously detailed, and Im very proud of the sheer scope of it.

Here's a fun fact: The Photoshop file of the design is almost an entire gigabyte in size, and takes a full 15 minutes to save!

In the coming weeks look for a full description of the design complete with photos and details.

Right after our preliminary design review on April 8th, I drove straight to 52nd and Master to the site of my "From Behind The Mask" mural. The next week would be spent finally installing the mask, checking for air bubbles, and sealing the mural. I worked with a different team for the installation: Joseph Verdi and Matt Dougherty of Nicholas Della Vecchia Construction. Joe and Matt were on hand to make sure the mask was properly installed to the wall. I was confident in my plans, but because the sculpture would be hung 20 feet high over a parking lot I wanted to make sure the installation was tight. Joe and Matt were great to work with, and the mask was up without incident in 2 days. Here is a slideshow of the final mural.

With the mural finally finished it was a race to wrap up the content of two Flash based webpages I was working on for the "Visual Restoration" Exhibit. The pages consist of the murals themselves, you can click on any area of the mural to get more photos and information of the particular section.

Here are the links to the sites, please note the button on the bottom right which expands each page to fullscreen.

Greenf ield Year One: Restoration

Greenfield Year Two: From Behind the Mask

Each computer in the Eakins House Lab were set to the sites, and people were given a sheet of questions to research and answer. Those with the most answers correct were entered in a drawing to win tickets to this year's Wall Ball.

The companion book to the projects, Visual Restoration by Phoebe Zinman was officially released that night as well. Phoebe did a great job of covering both years, and all of the photography, writing, painting, and events that went with them.

The show had a decent turn out opening night, it should be up for another month.

This past Sunday was the dedication in West Philly for From Behind the Mask. A lot of people in the neighborhood came out, it was a good time hosted by the Bibleway Baptist Church.
Pics will be up as soon as I can get them.

Now that these big events are over, I have to spend the remainder of the month finalizing the Citywide design, and finishing up the Anthropologie Mural with my Corps students.
We've been feverishly painting throughout the month to try and get this done. Next week is our last week to work, then Kien and I will take the Mural to NYC for installation. The opening will be on the morning of May 6th. Our classes will have to board the chartered bus at 6am.

On the night of May 6th, I will sleep the sleep of ages.

The Anthropologie Mural/Blog

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 20:44:00 +0000

SO in the past few months, my Mural Corps class teamed up with another site run by my friend Kien Nguyen (who is also my Citywide Project Teammate) to create a mural for Anthropologie. The work will take up three walls of an exhibit space in their flagship store at Rockefeller Center, NYC! During January and February we met with people from their main office in the navy yard to discuss the design and throw around ideas.

The classes began taking photographs of themselves inspired by fashion photography, and combining the imagery with patterns that can be found in any Anthropologie store as well as in everyday life. The resulting design combines the Anthropologie aesthetic with a youth perspective.

The mural is currently being painted by both classes in the Thomas Eakins house, and will be temporarily on display at Anthropologie's flagship store in Rockefeller Center in NYC from May 6th to the end of June.

This is a huge opportunity for the class,as the mural will be seen by an incomprehensible amount of people in those two months!

The project will be getting some press, but im not sure if i can discuss details yet. I'll post more when I'm sure it wont mess up any kind of opportunity we might get.

In addition, to document this whole project (since its a rare opportunity) I've decided to start a blog with my class. This time around it will be run and updated by the students themselves. One student in particular took courses in film at NYU last summer, she will hopefully lend her talents and time shooting some footage and putting together clips for the site.

The Student Blog (check for weekly updates)
http://okdehcorpsteam.blogspot.com/

This is the design in its entirety, use the scroll bar below to view the design details.

Citywide Project Meetings

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 14:09:00 +0000

4 of the 8 scheduled Citywide workshops are behind us now. Each one brought about completely different conversations, arriving at certain truths about the city and being a Philadelphian in general. This has been an interesting series so far, and its worth it to attend just for the conversation, and the stories.

Heres a few shots from the first 4 dates...

The Northwest workshop was postponed due to the snowday last monday. Here is the revised schedule of the last remaining workshops.

NORTH
Monday, March 9
6:30 - 8:30 pm
Project H.O.M.E.: Honickman Learning Center and Comcast Technology Labs
1936 Judson Street

SOUTHWEST
Tuesday, March 10
6:30 - 8:30 pm
Meyers Recreation Center
5800 Chester Avenue

NORTHWEST
Wednesday, March 17
6:30 - 8:30 pm
St. Martin's Church
8000 St. Martin's Lane

Final Culminating Meeting:
(all are invited to attend)
Thursday, March 19
6:30 - 8:30 pm
Daily News/Inquirer Building
Broad and Callowhill Streets

During this final meeting, representatives from all of the community forums will help present the information from their area of the city. This will be the final meeting before the artists begin their design phase.

Greenfield Restorative Justice Exhibition

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 04:32:00 +0000

April 17th is the Opening Reception for the Greenfield Restorative Justice Exhibition. The Albert M. Greenfield Foundation funded two of my most recent projects, which took about 2 years
to complete, and yielded countless photographs (From Howard Zehr and Harvey Finkle) , poetry and stories, student paintings and murals, audio interviews, and video. All of which will be on display in one form or another. A book, written by Phoebe Zinman, detailing the output of both projects will also make its debut and should be for sale that evening.

Im working on a web based interactive component for the opening that will take the viewer through both murals, expanding on the symbolism and meaning behind the imagery.

Here is a flyer i just made, the date is set but the times may change a bit. The show is throughout the Thomas Eakins House, Mural Arts base of operations located at 17th and Mount Vernon Sts. (just 2 blocks above Spring Garden. )

Please come out!

Citywide Mural Project "This We Believe"

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 22:59:00 +0000

I recently was selected to be a finalist in the "This We Believe" Citywide Mural Project.
This will be a groundbreaking new project that incorporates a series of workshops across the city to gather info for a Mural design all of Philly can get behind.

I put together an artist team of myself, and fellow muralists Michelle Ortiz and Kien Nguyen. Kien and I are currently in collaboration for a mural that will be displayed in Rockefeller center for 2 months this spring (but thats another blog for another time). Our team will be in competition against another group of artists. Once our designs are finished, everyone will get an opportunity to vote online and in person on thier favorite design.

The winning team gets to paint the mural with the involvement of volunteers across the city. The final 35' x 120' mural will be displayed at 30th St. Station, then moved and displayed for a period of time in the Gallery. In the end the mural will eventually be broken up into sections and permanently installed on buildings across Philadelphia.

The workshops begin tomorrow in South Philly. I will attach the email thats been going out, it has all the dates and times. More on this as it develops!

This year is your chance to be part of an historic & uniquely Philadelphia project

In celebration of twenty-five years of art education, mural-making and working in communities, the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program invites you to participate in our first city-wide mural project.

Centered around the theme "This We Believe," this initiative will provide the opportunity for you to share what you believe about our city. Facilitated community forums in neighborhoods throughout Philadelphia will give audience to your voice, which will in turn direct and inspire two teams of artists who will interpret your vision to create two proposed mural designs. These community-driven designs will be put to a city-wide vote, with the winning mural becoming the canvas for a series of community paint days. The finished mural will be temporarily hung in central locations in Philadelphia, with pieces ultimately being installed all over the city.

Between February and July, there will be opportunities for you to participate in community forums, vote for your favorite mural design, and participate in a paint-day with your family, friends and neighbors.

The Mural Arts Program is partnering with Leadership Philadelphia on this exciting initiative. Over eighty participants from the Leadership Philadelphia Core Class are volunteering on this project and assisting with community organizing and outreach.

Dates and locations for meetings:

SOUTH
Tuesday, February 24
6:30 - 8:30 pm
Church of Philadelphia
17th and Snyder Streets

NORTHEAST
Wednesday, February 25
6:30 - 8:30 pm
John Perzel Community Center
2990 St. Vincent Street

CENTER CITY
Thursday, February 26
6:30 - 8:30 pm
WHYY Independence Mall West
150 N. 6th Street

NORTHWEST
Monday, March 2
6:30 - 8:30 pm
St. Martin's Church
8000 St. Martin's Lane

WEST
Tuesday, March 3
6:30 - 8:30 pm
University of the Sciences in Philadelphia
Rosenberger Hall
600 South 43rd Street

NORTH
Monday, March 9
6:30 - 8:30 pm
Project H.O.M.E.: Honickman Learning Center and Comcast Technology Labs
1936 Judson Street

SOUTHWEST
Tuesday, March 10
6:30 - 8:30 pm
Meyers Recreation Center
5800 Chester Avenue

Final Culminating Meeting:
(all are invited to attend)
Thursday, March 19
6:30 - 8:30 pm
Daily News/Inquirer Building
Broad and Callowhill Streets

During this final meeting, representatives from all of the community forums will help present the information from their area of the city. This will be the final meeting before the artists begin their design phase.

Artist Teams:

Team 1: Kien Nguyen, Eric Okdeh & Michelle Ortiz
Team 2: Phillip Adams, David Guinn, & Damon Reaves
To see work by the artists, we invite you to look at our new site http://www.muralfarm.org.

Voting
Check here at the end of April/beginning of May for the two designs. You will be invited to vote for your favorite design.

Paint Days
Beginning in June and continuing into the summer, we will be holding paint days for people of all ages to come and join us in painting the winning design!

Dedication and Celebration
The dedication of the mural is planned for September 2009, as part of our 25th Anniversary. More details to follow.

Sponsors and Partners

The Mural Arts Program is very grateful to the following sponsors and partners:

Facilitators:
Chris Satullo
Executive Director of News and Civic Dialogue, WHYY
Harris Sokoloff
Director of the Penn Project for Civil Engagement
Daily News

In-kind donations:

IATSE
Amtrak at 30th Street Station
PREIT & the Gallery at Market East
Make your donation to the Mural Arts Program today!

This message was sent to subscribers to the Mural Arts Program mailing list. If you do not wish to receive further mailings, please follow this link to unsubscribe and you will be promptly removed.

Graterford Press

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 05:05:00 +0000

Recently in the past few weeks, we had a small dedication for an indoor mural my Graterford Prison class painted in the institution. The mural was installed in the senior visitor's center. The class' design focuses on life reflection as well as valuing the time you have with family during a visit. Poetry was written to this effect and included in sections of the design.

Here are some images of the final mural

The dedication was a big event and the funders from the Violette de Mazia Foundation arrived and brought the press. The following two links are articles written about the event.
The second article focuses more on the class' response to the economic crisis and its effects on the Mural Arts Program.

Graterford Prison Gets a New Paint Job

Inmates band together to save Mural Arts prison program

I was recently granted permission to bring my camera into the institution to photograph the murals that we've done inside. I finally have hi-res photos of everything! So I wanted to post a few shots of a mural that's long overdue.

In 2005 we painted a wall in the Prison's gym, the mural was in honor of Bernard Hopkins who has spent his formative years as a boxer incarcerated at Graterford. In interviews, Bernard doesnt shy away from questions about being an inmate, which is a good thing. People can stand to hear more about men and women who go through the system and emerge reformed. The high recidivism rate in our prisons casts a shadow on many of these success stories. The class decided to paint this mural in Barnard's honor, depicting his time training in the institution, and emerging as Champion. At the time Barnard had successfully defended his middleweight title a record 20 times.

Hopkins puts his finishing touch on the wall.

Bernard speaks at the dedication. This one of my most memorable moments on the job. This ones going on my highlight reel

Photo by Jack Ramsdale

My Work in 2008

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 05:26:00 +0000

Here is a slide show of all my 2008 work. I could have spent hours uploading the thousands of pics I've taken during these projects... so I decided to leave out progress shots and workshop photos. They can be viewed on the main page. Instead, here are the final shots and details of my work last year.

To see the slide show you might need a flash plug-in, which can be downloaded here.

FINISHED!!!! (for now)

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:23:00 +0000

As of January 3rd I wrapped up the Mural. The final title is From Behind the Mask. It was a tough December but we all got through it, and just in time as the next two weeks saw temperatures plummet. Its insane to think that virtually none of this existed at the beginning of December. The faux brick finish and arches were in place. Thats it! We didnt even install the mosaic until the 5th or 6th.

Everything on the wall is finished except for the mask. We were able to complete the sculpture indoors, but the weather just wasnt on our side for an installation. I photoshopped the final mask photo on to the wall to give an idea of what it will look like after a spring installation. The mask will stand a foot and a half from the wall.

The Stained Glass arches at sundown. The mural looks great in the sunset's red-orange hue.

This video captures the installation from beginning to end.

"From Behind the Mask" Mural Installation

Many thanks to my team of assistants (Katharine Clark-Gray, Charlie Patterson, Mike Reali, Khalil Brown, Koran Morris, and Terell Mclamb) who worked through the weather and helped finish a very ambitious project within such a small amount of time.

Mask and Painting Workshops

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 04:46:00 +0000

We had our final community workshop for the Bibleway mural on the14th. This time around, my assistants and I spent the week before constructing a mask that will stand a foot and a half from the wall and 7 feet in diameter. In addition to painting panels of the mural, people took part in decorating the mask with stained glass and beads .

Here are a few photos from the various workshops and paint days...

For the first day I had everyone start off by painting the most important image of the wall, the main figures face.

Katherine Clark Gray led a series of maskmaking workshops over the summer with bibleway youth. Inspired, I felt it would be appropriate to incorporate masks into the design and run with it as a theme, culminating in the class returning to work on one last HUGE mask. Here she is setting up guidelines before the workshop

Once everything is laid out glass and beads were cut and adhered to the mask.

While the mask is worked on, some people chose to stick with painting mural panels. Having the group on the mask provided this man some elbow room to add his finishing touches.

The almost finished mask. Due to weather, the mask will have to be installed during the springtime. The overall shape was broken into two pieces to make installation easier, and to get the piece in and out of the building.

My Progress so far...

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 16:13:00 +0000

Its cold out there...

I need one more good day over 50 degrees to install the rest of the mural. Everything else is just painting directly on the wall and touch-ups.

We had our final community workshop on the 14th where we painted and decorated with glass a 7 foot in diameter mask that will stand out a foot and a half in relief from the wall. Pics to follow

Heres a "Time Lapse" video of the mural's progress

"From Behind the Mask" Mural Installation

Nothing Like the last minute...

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 02:20:00 +0000

I was fortunate to find a window of opportunity to install a 15ft x 18ft mosaic piece on the Bibleway Wall this past week, in spite of the weather getting colder by the day. I had 2 days of mild temperatures to work with, and with the help of my 5 man crew, we wrapped up just in time.

Here is a shot of the Murals design.

The design took its inspiration from a summers worth of neighborhood programs involving writing, painting, and maskmaking, and is very loosely inspired by the Paul Lawrence Dunbar poem "We Wear the Mask". The theme revolves around healing, and the ways in which ones faith and surrounding friends and neighbors can provide support. The photos are taken from actual events over the summer, and the two main figures were summer participants who posed for me. The imagery of the waterfall in the arches appears as actual stained glass that my assistants and I spent a month cutting. The waterfall continues in paint below the bridge. The water and the idea of reflection were a way of bringing religious elements to the design without being too heavy handed. The design was a collaborative effort between my Graterford Prison Class and myself.

Now that there is a tiny bit of background on the design... here is the mosaic installed, which at the time of this photo is 90% finished. It took a month to cut in my studio, and its my most ambitious mosaic piece to date. Its comprised of about 40-50 different colors, and (in terms of total square footage) my largest stained glass piece.

This week will probably be the last bit of decent weather we have this year, and I was very lucky to get this up in time. I wasn't particularly fond of leaving the arches blank until the springtime.

the small pic doesnt do the cuts justice, so here are a few details

...just getting started

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 16:07:00 +0000

2008 marks my 10th year of being a Muralist. In those 10 years I've found myself racing against winter weather to finish a Mural at least 6 times.

Ive painted:

in the snow
during actual snowstorms
in freezing weather using a heatgun
in the freezing rain with blue tarps running from the roof to the tops of the scaffolding
on New Years Day in the snow
On a day that registered -1 degree (I was installing a buildout that day)

This year will be no different.

Im doing a project at 52nd and Master Sts on the site of the Bibleway Baptist Church. Mural Arts has had a presence in the neighborhood, drumming up support and collaborations for the project, since the early summer. The design is approved and Im beginning to cut glass for a large portion of the wall.

The mural will be multimedia: glass, paint, and relief sculpture. The project is a tall order in terms of finishing before the winter season. However I remember a few muralists working in January this past year because the weather worked in their favor.
I'm hoping for a little luck.

If anyone reading this finds themselves trying to finish a project in the winter time, here are a few tips from me on how to stay warm.

Boil your brush water in the morning.
It takes a little extra time but fill up a pot and bring it to a boil. pour the water in the 5gal bucket and cover it. Your guaranteed a good 5 hours of warm water, so your not freezing your fingers off cleaning your brushes.
Layers, and tucking in clothing
Wear some longjohns under your pants and tuck them in your socks. Tuck one of your many tshirts solidly into your underwear. I swear this keeps you 10 degrees warmer.
If you can, work with the sun
If you arent in a desperate mad dash to finish like I will be, work afternoons when its warmer, OR work when you have sunlight. Everyone painting a mural should know where the sun will be and when. East facing walls get the morning sun, West facing walls are good in the afternoon.
Make friends with the neighbors
Seriously... out of pity it might get you a cup of coffee, or even a home cooked meal at the end of the day.
Grow a serious beard (or wear a scarf)
I foresaw my situation months ago, Since then I've been farming an intense beard to help combat the cold.

On to the wall...
This is the wall. The building was once the home of Rev. Jones and his father. Now it acts as a community center.
Its roughly 40ft high by 60ft wide. In the design (which I will post soon) I saw an opportunity to use the facade's unique shape to my advantage, bringing out some architectural elements in the design.

This part of 52nd Street has 4 or 5 different churches on it, you can see another right across the street from Bibleway.

Across the street is a mural by Paris Stancell. Paris was the first muralist I met when I started 10 years ago. He's done some really great work throughout the city, and to me, he is one of the few artists that are synonymous with the Mural Arts Program.
Part of my design reflects the arches and the stained glass feel of this wall. I felt that it was important to have some sort of reference to the work as it is right across the street. I wanted to create some kind of dialogue between the two walls. I feel that people will naturally make those connections, and possibly create new ones.

View My Murals on Google Earth!

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 16:47:00 +0000

I just finished uploading and tagging photographs of my murals to be seen on Google Earth.

You can now take a virtual tour of my work across the city of Philadelphia!

Click to Download Google Earth

Once google earth is installed, down load this file, then doubleclick on it.
Eric Okdeh's Mural Tour

Once you are in, you can navigate through the tour in the "Places" panel on the left side of the window. The sites are organized from my latest projects to my earliest, way back in 1999.

Obama Rally at Myers Rec

noreply@blogger.com (Eric) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 01:53:00 +0000

Just got word that there will be an Obama rally at the site of one of my murals in Southwest Philly. Michelle Obama and Jill Biden will be holding a rally at Myers Rec Center at 58th and Kinsessing. Below is the email I received. (thanks for the heads up Lindsey)

I hope everything held up over the past year or so.

This Wednesday, September 24th, please join Michelle Obama and Jill Biden at a rally in Philadelphia.

Change We Need Rally

with Michelle Obama and Jill Biden

Francis Meyers Recreation Center

5803 Kingsessing Avenue

Philadelphia, PA

Wednesday, September 24th
Gates Open: 4:30 p.m.

<
http://pa.barackobama.com/PhiladelphiaChange
The event is free and open to the public. Tickets are not required, but an RSVP is encouraged. Space is limited and is available on a first-come, first-served basis.
For security reasons, do not bring bags. Please limit personal items. No signs or banners allowed.
If you cannot make it to this event but would still like to support Barack, you can make a donation here:
https://donate.barackobama.com/wecan