Jane Golden | |
|---|---|
 Golden in 1981 | |
| Nationality | America |
| Education | B.A. Stanford University M.F.A. Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University Honorary PH.D., Swarthmore College |
| Known for | Mural Arts Program |
Jane Golden is an American artist who has been an active mural painter and community organizer since the 1970s.
Following graduation from Stanford University, Golden moved to Los Angeles and created a number of large, well received murals in the Los Angeles beach areas, particularly in Santa Monica, in the late 1970s and early 1980s. She was co-founder and director of the Los Angeles Public Art Foundation. [1]
In 1985, following a diagnosis of lupus, Golden left California to be with her family in the Philadelphia area, where she had grown up. [2] In 1984, she founded Mural Arts Philadelphia, which grew out of the Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti Network. [3] The program was designed to fight graffiti in the city by giving graffiti artists a more productive artistic outlet. She quickly began working with at risk teens. Together, they painted murals throughout the city and were trained in practical working skills. The program grew, and the Mural Arts Program (MAP) has now created over 3600 murals to date.
Under Jane Golden's leadership, MAP transitioned to a comprehensive community service program in 1996, collaborating with various governmental agencies to transform individuals and communities through art. Golden's approach emphasizes honoring the voices of marginalized individuals, providing them with a platform for self-expression and community engagement. By fostering dialogue and cooperation, MAP helps to rebuild trust and validate the experiences of community members. [4]
The collaborative process of designing a MAP project involves extensive community engagement. MAP leaders, including Jane Golden, hold regular meetings to listen to the collective voices of community members, discussing their problems, frustrations, hopes, and dreams. This dialogue is essential in developing mural designs that genuinely reflect the community's experiences and aspirations. The process ensures that the murals are not just art pieces but symbols of the community's identity and collective vision. [5]
MAP's projects, such as the "Healing Walls," have facilitated dialogues between prisoners, crime victims, and community members, leading to mutual understanding and transformation. This initiative exemplifies how art can serve as a medium for healing and redemption, breaking down barriers and fostering empathy among diverse groups. Overall, MAP's impact extends beyond beautifying urban spaces; it actively engages residents in the artistic process, thereby promoting social cohesion, empowering individuals, and fostering a sense of community ownership and pride. [6]
In 2003, Golden received a Visionary Woman Award from Moore College of Art & Design. Eisenhower Fellowships selected Jane Golden as a USA Eisenhower Fellow in 2003. She is an instructor at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art and teaches at the University of Pennsylvania.[ citation needed ]
Supporters of Golden urged her to run for Mayor of Philadelphia in 2015, an idea Golden said she was "intrigued by. [7]
Golden has become an important voice and organizer within the community. Under her leadership, the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program actively engages with critical issues in the area. Their Porch Light program spotlights mental illness issues and homelessness and addiction, in cooperation with the Department of Behavioral Health. [8] Golden has taught at Graterford Prison for many years and has also spearheaded a collaborative project connecting inmates and juveniles at a correction facility with a Kensington neighborhood. Connections at Graterford brought Golden to a position where she could support conceptual artist Peggy Diggs, who worked with inmates to construct shelters for disaster survivors. [9] Some bemoan the quality of the murals developed through local participation as a model for developing the murals, citing uneven quality, artist Stephen Powers identifies Golden's success in convincing civic authorities that art can be an agent of positive change. [10]
In 1989, Golden painted a mural in the Point Breeze section of Philadelphia with a group of neighborhood children titled "Stop the Violence", in honor of children from that neighborhood that had been killed by gun violence. [11] In 2018, this mural was destroyed when the wall of the rowhouse that contained it crumbled during the process of redevelopment, sparking controversy about the effects of gentrification in that neighborhood. [11]
Bryn Mawr College is a private women's liberal arts college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. Founded as a Quaker institution in 1885, Bryn Mawr is one of the Seven Sister colleges, a group of historically women's colleges in the United States. The college has an enrollment of about 1,350 undergraduate students and 450 graduate students. It was the first women's college to offer graduate education through a PhD.
Bala Cynwyd is a community and census-designated place in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located on the Philadelphia Main Line in Southeastern Pennsylvania and borders the western edge of Philadelphia at U.S. Route 1. The present-day community was originally two separate towns, Bala and Cynwyd, but was united as a singular community largely because the U.S. Post Office, the Bala Cynwyd branch, served both towns using ZIP Code 19004. The combining of the communities gives a total population of 9,285 as of the 2020 census. The community was long known as hyphenated Bala-Cynwyd. Bala and Cynwyd are currently served by separate stations on SEPTA's Cynwyd Line of Regional Rail.
Point Breeze is a multicultural neighborhood in South Philadelphia in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. It is bounded by 25th Street to the west, Washington Avenue to the north, Broad Street to the east, and Moore Street to the south. Southwest Center City lies to its north. Passyunk Square and East Passyunk Crossing lie to its east. Point Breeze is separated from Grays Ferry to the west by a CSX railway viaduct over 25th Street.
The State Correctional Institution – Graterford, commonly referred to as SCI Graterford, known prior as Eastern Correctional Institution, Graterford Prison, Graterford Penitentiary, and the Graterford Prison Farm, was a Pennsylvania Department of Corrections prison located in Skippack Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, near Graterford. The prison, located on Graterford Road off of Pennsylvania Route 29, was about 31 miles (50 km) northwest of Philadelphia.
Mural Arts Philadelphia is a non-profit organization that supports the creation of public murals in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1986 as the Mural Arts Program, the organization was renamed in 2016. Having ushered more than 4,000 murals into being, it calls itself "the nation’s largest public art program." As of 2024, the organization runs 50 to 100 public art projects each year, including new murals in neighborhoods such as Kensington, Northern Liberties, and the Gayborhood. It also works to maintain existing murals.
Violet Oakley was an American artist. She was the first American woman to receive a public mural commission. During the first quarter of the 20th century, she was renowned as a pathbreaker in mural decoration, a field that had been exclusively practiced by men. Oakley excelled at murals and stained glass designs that addressed themes from history and literature in Renaissance-revival styles.
The Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti Network (PAGN) was founded in January 1984 by former Philadelphia Mayor Wilson Goode. The original goal of the program was to combat the spread of graffiti in the Philadelphia area and was led by Tim Spencer. In 1986 another program began within PAGN, named The Mural Arts Project (MAP), and headed by artist Jane Golden. Through the success of both programs in 1991 the city of Philadelphia was awarded the Innovations in American Government Award due to the progress PAGN and MAP had made in the surrounding communities. In 1996 the success of MAP was noted and split off into a separate program and placed under the umbrella of the Philadelphia Recreation Department. From the founding of these programs over 2,500 murals have been created across the city and over 40,000 walls cleaned of graffiti. The Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti Network currently consists of three programs; Mural Arts Program, Paint Voucher Program, and the Graffiti Abatement Team.
Harcum College is a private associate degree-granting college in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 1915 and was the first college in Pennsylvania authorized to grant associate degrees.
Darryl McCray, better known by his tagging name Cornbread, is an American graffiti writer from Philadelphia. He is widely considered the world's first modern graffiti artist. McCray was raised in Brewerytown, a neighborhood of North Philadelphia. During the late 1960s, he and a group of friends started doing graffiti in Philadelphia, by writing their monikers on walls across the city. Independently to Philadelphia, the graffiti movement was evolving in New York City and blossomed into the modern graffiti movement, which reached its peak in the U.S. in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and then spread to Europe. McCray later worked with the Philadelphia's Anti-Graffiti Network and Mural Arts Program to help combat the spread of graffiti in the city. He is currently a public speaker and a youth advocate.
The Asian Arts Initiative (AAI) is a nonprofit organization in Philadelphia which focuses on art and the Asian-American community. It was founded by Gayle Isa, who also served as AAI's first executive director until June 2018. Its current executive director is Anne Ishii.
InLiquid is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit member-based organization that provides free resources for the Philadelphia area arts community and serves to connect artists with curators, collectors, and the general public. Its website includes a local arts events calendar, employment, grant, and exhibition opportunities listings, as well as directories of arts publications, galleries, arts centers, and educational institutions.
Sarah McEneaney is an American artist, painter, and community activist who lives and works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Working primarily in egg tempera her paintings are characterized by their autobiographical content, detailed brushwork, and brilliant color. McEneaney's intimate subject matter focuses on daily scenes from her home, studio, travels, and neighborhood. Her work is included in public collections such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art and she has received numerous grants and awards. McEneaney is also active in community work, including the formation of the Callowhill Neighborhood Association in 2001, and the co-founding of the Reading Viaduct Project in 2003.
Jane Irish is an American artist, painter, and ceramicist who lives and works in Philadelphia. Working primarily in gouache and egg tempera her paintings are characterized by their perspectives of Rococo interiors and explorations of the legacy of the Vietnam War. Irish infuses sumptuous interiors with memories of colonialism and orientalism, sometimes making raised text within her painting surfaces, which feature war poetry or historical protest text. The text on the surface of her ceramics includes collaborations with prominent art critics like Vincent Katz and Carter Ratcliff and poetry from Vietnam war veterans from a 1972 collection.
Gabrielle de Veaux Clements was an American painter, print maker, and muralist. She studied art at the Philadelphia School of Design for Women, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, and in Paris at Académie Julian. Clements also studied science at Cornell University and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree. She created murals, painted portraits, and made etchings. Clements taught in Philadelphia and in Baltimore at Bryn Mawr School. Her works have been exhibited in the United States and at the Paris Salon. Clements works are in several public collections. Her life companion was fellow artist Ellen Day Hale.
Yolanda Wisher is an American poet, educator and spoken word artist who focuses on the experience of being African-American. She is a graduate of Temple University and was selected as the third Poet Laureate of Philadelphia in 2016.
Sarah Jane Blakeslee was an American landscape and portrait painter.
Ana Uribe is a muralist and painter originally from Colombia, who lives and works in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She has created multiple murals as part of the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program, many of them in poorer neighborhoods of Philadelphia.
The State Correctional Institution – Phoenix is a state prison in Skippack Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, with a Collegeville postal address, in the Philadelphia metropolitan area. Operated by Pennsylvania Department of Corrections, it was named after the phoenix bird.
Trapeta B. Mayson is a Liberian-born poet, teacher, social worker, and non-profit administrator residing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US. Her writing primarily centers on the experiences of immigrants to the United States, the struggles of people dealing with conflict in Liberia, and the daily lives of average people, especially women and girls. She received a Master of Social Work from Bryn Mawr College and an MBA from Villanova University. She was selected as the fifth Poet Laureate of Philadelphia in 2019.
Daniela Holt Voith is an American architect. She is the Founding Partner and Director of Design at Philadelphia-based architecture studio Voith & Mactavish Architects, LLP and is Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (FAIA). She has worked extensively providing planning and design services with schools and universities including the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School, Yale University, and boarding schools such as Millbrook School, The Lawrenceville School, and St. Andrew's School, where the film Dead Poets Society was shot. The firm's major projects also include preserving, rehabilitating, and additions to National Historic Landmarks such as the Mercer Museum, Bryn Mawr Film Institute, Old Library at Bryn Mawr College, and the former Centennial National Bank, now the alumni center for Drexel University. She is married to economist Richard Patrick Voith, Chairman of Econsultsolutions Inc., who is a fellow at the University of Pennsylvania's Institute of Urban Research and adjunct faculty at Wharton. As of 2019, she is the President of the Philadelphia Chapter of the Institute for Classical Architecture and Art. She sits on the board of the Design Leadership Foundation and is a director of the Carpenter's Company of Philadelphia.
| External videos | |
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 “Mural Arts Moments of 2016: Jane Golden", December 5, 2016 | |
| “Why Philadelphia has Thousands of Murals", April 24, 2017 |
| International | |
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| Artists | |
