Giving voice to the victims

One in an occasional series

Pain and fear permeated the house, Myra Maxwell of West Philadelphia remembers.

After suffering a violent sexual assault, her teenage daughter wouldn't eat, couldn't sleep. Her other children became scared and protective; her husband aggressive and vengeful; Maxwell helpless and angry.

"It kind of trickles through the entire family," she said of the crime's aftermath. Five years later, there is still anger and "lingering, ongoing pain."

Maxwell's journey, and those of others like her, are the inspiration behind a mural that will be painted in North Philadelphia to honor victims of crime.

The mural will be the second to grow out of what originally was supposed to be a shared vision.

Muralists at the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program had hoped that crime survivors, neighborhood residents, and convicted felons could collaborate on a single mural about healing the wounds of crime.

But the disparate groups, though connected by violence, found that they had little in common.

Muralists decided there was too much material for one wall and created a second. Each wall could cost $18,000 to $20,000. About $8,000 has been spent already for paint, cloth, and stipends for the artists. Right now, the project is about $15,000 short of $40,000 needed for two walls. Still, there has been talk of a third.

Since the project began in March, community leaders and crime victims, one or two at a time, have gone to Graterford Prison in Montgomery County, scooting chairs into a circle of inmates for brainstorming sessions and tearful sharing.

Inmates stressed what they had in common with victims - feelings of isolation or abandonment. But they also gravitated toward images of redemption, making amends, and forgiveness - themes that victims did not always share.

"I don't think there are many victims I work with that think about forgiveness," said Mary Catherine Lowery, a victim advocate with St. Gabriel's System who is involved in the project. "They try to come to terms with what has happened to them."

In 2002, there were an estimated 147,000 crimes in Philadelphia involving victims, according to Capt. Thomas Lynch of the Philadelphia Police Department's Victim Services Division. Lynch's review of crime statistics does not count the ripple effect - the children, family and friends of the victims, who also may have felt the impact of the crime.

"These are forgotten folk," Lynch said. "And there are lots of them."

Victims can experience excruciating feelings of pain, anger, turmoil and loss as they try to rebuild shattered lives, advocates say. For many, the effect of the crime is so profound that they come to see themselves as two different people, one before the crime and another after.

One victim described her life as a fresh sheet of white paper that had been crumpled up and spread out flat again: still intact, but forever changed.

Asking the victim to understand or forgive the person who caused the pain would be an unfair burden, victim advocates told muralists.

Even the concept of healing is charged with emotion. Who has the right to tell any survivor of crime how, or even if, he or she must heal?

Earlier this month, victim advocates gathered at the Mural Arts Program's Center City office to give their opinions about the second mural's design, which was created after they reacted with frustration and anger to the first.

The first mural, drawn after numerous discussions inside Graterford Prison, included an image of an inmate in a jail cell, reaching back to the neighborhood he left behind.

"This is the inmate's voice. This is the inmate's pain. Not the victim's pain," Kathy Buckley, director of victims services at Pennsylvania's Office of the Victim Advocate, said in September when the design was unveiled.

So mural artist César Viveros-Herrera, in collaboration with artist Parris Stancell, created a design for a second mural.

Designed with victims in mind, the second piece depicts images of anguish and death as well as visual metaphors of beauty and strength.

On the left, two people kneel over a grave. Behind them, a man raises his hands to the sky, his face screaming a silent "Why?" to God.

Marble gravestones and stone angels dominate the right side of the mural. A tiny boy reaches to one of the female-shaped grave markers, as though asking his mother to pick him up. Fluttering doves and creeping morning glories offer hopeful symbols of journey and growth.

Victim advocates applauded when the design was unveiled in mid-December.

"He heard what we were saying," said Kathryn Battle, a victims assistance officer of the police Homicide Unit. "I see that the jail cell is gone. And that little boy raising his arms, as if saying, 'Who has me now?' To me, that right there is the icing on the cake."

During the next few months, crime survivors and victim advocates will help paint the two murals, side by side with Graterford inmates, using a color-by-number technique on acrylic cloth squares. Painting on the first mural has already begun, with five of the 75 panels completed. This month, victim advocates joined inmates in their first group effort.

The Mural Arts Program will offer paint days at its offices at 17th and Mount Vernon Streets in Philadelphia once a month, beginning in January, for crime victims who do not want to go to the prison.

If all goes as planned, the two murals will be installed in June on two walls in the 3000 block of Germantown Avenue.

Jane Golden, the project's director, already has plans for a third mural, using ideas generated from the first two.

"It should be about the search for justice," Golden said. She plans to gather input from district attorneys, police officers, social workers, and probation officers.

Golden hopes the project will provide a forum for long-term discussions about the difficulties of crime and punishment.

"Can we take the agony and isolation that is caused by crime and punishment and... bring meaning into the lives of those who have suffered?" she asked.

Victims and their advocates say the second wall could be a start.