Wall without color waits for decision

In a city covered with over 2,700 murals, Penn's walls remain strikingly blank.

So earlier this year, City Planning professor Amy Hillier proposed painting a mural to honor W.E.B. DuBois by beautifying the west wall of the Kappa Sigma fraternity house.

She received ambiguous responses from University officials, who are still deciding whether to paint what would be the first mural on campus.

Facilities spokesman Tony Sorrentino said that, while officials haven't yet scheduled time for the proposal, they will meet with Hillier later this semester and have Penn's Design Review and Campus Art Committees review the plan.

Once the University architect and Facilities officials meet with Hillier, the proposal will be put on the agenda and reviewed.

But whether the review will be positive is anything but certain.

Hillier said Penn tends to have a general sentiment against creating murals, which she said can be traced to previous Penn Facilities officials.

Those officials did not think murals "were appropriate for Penn's campus because murals were traditionally associated with blighted areas," Hillier said.

Jane Golden, the program director of the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program said she will meet with University officials to discuss Penn's stance toward murals but did not have an exact meeting date.

The Mural Arts Program is an organization that helps fund and recruits painters for city murals.

"We're at the cusp of doing more mural work in Philadelphia by expanding our relationships with local universities," Golden said.

And as the South Street mural project progresses, others at Penn are urging the University to overturn that policy and authorize a mural to beautify the Kappa Sigma wall.

College junior Jim Gunther, vice president of Kappa Sigma, said most people don't pay attention to the wall because of its ugliness.

"A mural would really bring something special to the campus environment," he said.

Hillier added that "accepting murals would send a message that we're a part of the city and want to reflect what's important to the city."

"This city has a lot of pride about its murals because it's how Philadelphia celebrates its heroes," she said. "We shouldn't be above that."

Meanwhile, as Hillier waits for the University to reach a final decision, she has moved on to a project with Golden's Mural Arts Program.

Last fall, Hillier proposed a mural on the wall of a building off of Rodman and South streets - the "edge of the area [DuBois] studied for his book, The Philadelphia Negro" - to celebrate DuBois' research.

"It will be very historically targeted at his work," Hillier said of the mural's yet-to-be-determined content.

Hillier plans to begin work sometime between the summer and next spring. Funding for the project will last through the end of 2008, when it is scheduled to be completed.

The Mural Arts Program approved the proposal because of its connections to cultural history and civic engagement, Golden said.

The community is "very excited because it's a project that's long overdue," she said.

The price tag for an average mural runs anywhere from $12,000 to $24,000, depending on the materials used, Golden said.

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