Philadelphia Mural (Parrish St. and N. 15th): "ARTsolutely Awesome..."
Artists: Marcus Akinlana, 2007
This beautiful mural has the most unusual name: ARTsolutely Awesome North Philly... Yeah. The mural is "a tribute to the music and creative dreams of North Philadelphia". With over 3,500 murals, Philadelphia is "the" city of murals.
You can read about the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program in an earlier post, or, browse through the mural photos on this site.
The saxophonist depicted on the left is John Coltrane. "Trane", born in North Carolina, moved to Philadelphia in 1943. Before he set off to the international Jazz scene, Trane honed his skills in North Philadelphia Jazz clubs.
The woman in the center of the pictured section of the mural is Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, known as the first African American poet, sculptor and painter to explore Afrocentric themes in art. Best known for her sculptures that explored human emotion, she sporadically struggled with racial prejudice throughout her long career. Fuller continued to produce significant and inspired works in her eighties, until she died in 1968, at age 90.
Song of the Day: Naima - John Coltrane (1965)
