BadgerFiles

When students at the Alexander Wilson Elementary School in southwest Philadelphia return to school in the fall, they will notice new paint on the schoolhouse walls, courtesy of Warrior Run graduate Jon Laidacker. Mr. Laidacker works with the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program to paint a community’s story through murals.

According to Mr. Laidacker, “The Mural Arts Program has many art education programs where they work with inner city youth in the creation of a mural. My assistant and I taught a mural class as an extension of the art curriculum to a group of 20 fourth, fifth, and sixth graders.”

The Mural Arts Program plans to paint 100 murals in five years for 100 Philadelphia schools. Each mural project includes the students of the school and teaches the students how to paint murals. In the mural, Mr. Laidacker points out that each of his students appear in the finished painting.

“Jon paints in a classical style, tromp l’ oeil, very powerful photoreaslitic figures,” according to Amy Johnston, Assistant to the Director of Community Murals, with the Mural Arts Program. “One of our project managers who has worked with Jon describes him as very open, willing to learn, and able to engage the community. This makes Jon uniquely suited to be a mural artist.”

Mr. Laidacker discovered his love of painting murals accidentally. After graduating from Mansfield University in 2003 with a B.S. in Studio Arts, he moved to Pittsburgh. However, Mr. Laidacker had a difficult time establishing himself in the city’s galleries, which meant he earned a living pumping gas, not by painting. Then he answered an advertisement for artists in the newspaper.

Turns out he answered a call for muralists that was sponsored by the Sprout Fund, a community-minded non-profit group designed to support and retain creative, young people in Pittsburgh. As part of the selection process, Mr. Laidacker met with community members and proposed a mural design. He won the commission and a career.

“It was just a gig to get me out of pumping gas, but I ended up getting hooked,” explains Mr. Laidacker. While in Pittsburgh, he became friends with Morton Brown who ran the Sprout Fund’s mural program. Mr. Brown was previously a muralist for the Mural Arts Program in Philadelphia.

The Mural Arts Program employs artists year round, while the Sprout Fund commissions approximately seven or eight murals a year. When those murals are finished, so is the work. After learning about the Philadelphia program, Mr. Laidacker decided to relocate. He applied for and got accepted to the MFA program at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

The Philadelphia Mural Arts Program started as the Anti-Graffiti Network in 1984 as a way to combat graffiti. Under the direction of muralist Jane Golden, the Anti-Graffiti Network provided opportunities to refresh the city landscape with murals instead of graffiti. In 1996, Mayor Rendell renamed the Anti-Graffiti Network the Mural Arts Program.

Since its inception, the Mural Arts Program has created over 2700 murals and attracts muralists from around the world, earning Philadelphia the nickname “City of Murals.” To learn more about the Mural Arts Program, visit www.muralarts.org.

By the time Mr. Laidacker finished the final semester (May 2007) of his MFA, he was lead artist on three paintings with the Mural Arts Programs, including the Alexander Wilson Elementary School.

Mr. Laidacker says, “The Philadelphia Mural Arts Program has had two volumes of books published showcasing artists in the program and their work. I’m too new to the program and not in the books though.” That means if you want to see Mr. Laidacker’s paintings up close, you have two options: Visit Philadelphia and take a guided tour with the Mural Arts Program or commission him to paint a mural in Central Pennsylvania.