Inmates' murals will get broader canvas

A collaborative mural project involving a North Philadelphia neighborhood, advocates for victims of violent crime, and felons has spawned a new work program at Graterford Prison.

The state prison will employ up to 15 inmates full time to paint murals for Philadelphia neighborhoods, prison officials said this week.

"We have the manpower, supervision and the skill to do it," said prison superintendent David DiGuglielmo, who came up with the idea after learning that city muralists were struggling to meet the demand for new art. "It's a good idea, and I'd like to make it a reality."

The extra manpower could translate into 10 more murals per year for the city, said Jane Golden, director of the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program.

"That will be a big boost for us," Golden said, adding that the waiting list for murals was about 850 sites long. Muralists would ask a community before sending a mural to Graterford to be painted, she said.

Golden also hopes some of the murals will be collaborative, like the "Healing Wall" project that began in April and provided the idea for the work program. That project brought community leaders, victim advocates and inmates together to design a mural about healing the wounds of crime.

The groups have met at the prison to paint together, using a color-by-numbers technique. Twin murals will be installed on two walls in the 3000 block of Germantown Avenue sometime in the fall.

Under the new community-work program, inmates will work six hours a day, five days a week to paint mural sections onto 5-foot cloth panels. Later, artists from the Mural Arts Program will use acrylic gel to install the panels on walls in schools, senior citizens' centers, recreation centers, and other locations throughout the city.

The program will fall under the Department of Corrections' Community Work Programs, which allow inmates to give back to society through community service. Throughout Pennsylvania, nonviolent, minimum-security inmates work in 10-man crews outside prison walls, on projects such as clearing litter along state highways and repairing picnic areas in state parks. Violent offenders in maximum-security prisons work in-house.

For example, Graterford employs 16 inmates, many serving life sentences, to restore used wheelchairs for a California charity that sends them to other countries.

Since Graterford began participating in the "Wheels for the World" program in August 2001, inmates have rebuilt almost 1,800 wheelchairs for people in China, Poland, Romania and Honduras, said Philip Gibson, shop supervisor.

"They stick with it pretty good," Gibson said of the men he supervises. "They seem to like what they're doing."

Inmates in community-work programs earn 51 cents per hour at Graterford, compared with 19 to 42 cents for other jobs such as food-service or janitorial work. Program applicants must meet strict criteria, including having good behavior, said Leslie Sheldon-Kloss, the prison's inmate-employment officer.

"If they have a huge history of misconduct . . . it's not worth our time to train them," she said.

Sheldon-Kloss said she gets 50 to 75 requests a day from inmates to get a job, transfer positions, or complain about their current work assignments.

"I'm kind of excited about this," she said of the mural program. "I'd like to create a few more jobs."

Golden envisions projects such as at-risk youths and prisoners painting together on such themes as crime prevention. She also is applying for state aid to create a mural-restoration crew that would employ parolees.

DiGuglielmo isn't sure about a collaboration with outsiders - yet. But he isn't ruling out the idea, he said, if mural artists "feel that element would be needed for a specific mural."

The program is still in its infancy, Golden and DiGuglielmo said. But Golden is optimistic about it, saying there are "many creative approaches that we haven't explored."

And, she said, she is thrilled about how a single mural project has blossomed.

"It just shows you that the things you do lead somewhere," she said. "Who says that art can't break down barriers?"

Contact staff writer Leslie Pappas at 215-702-7822 or lpappas@phillynews.com.