The Eagles Youth Program was started in 1995 by Christina Weiss Lurie, wife of Philadelphia Eagles owner Jeffery Lurie. In collaboration with Mural Arts of Philadelphia the Eagles Youth Program chooses an entire school to restore. New playground equipment, interior and exterior murals as well as mosaic installations transform almost every surface. They believe that making a better environment for the students will encourage them to learn and grow. This summer's project is the Potter Thomas Elementary School on 6th and Indiana Sts. Recently this neighborhood has had issues with drugs and violence. Neighbors say there has been a notable change since this project started in January. The program involves local students beginning with an after school art club that incorporates student drawings into the mural. Over 800 people came to Eagles Day, an all day event including every member of the Eagles football team and staff along with Mural Arts staff and artists. Class by class the children were brought out to paint with the Eagles. The team members helped build the playground and painted over 30% of the mural that day alone. As the school year came to a close the Mural Arts Program of Philadelphia took over, working hard to finish over 12,000 square feet of murals. Aside from the three interns there were three other people there that day. Muralist David McShane is in charge of the whole mural. He has been creating Eagles Partnership murals for some time now. Mosaic artist Natalie Weiters is creating colorful glass and tile mosaics covering benches and doorways. Other assistants and volunteers work with the program and I will have to get their names for my next blog. I talked to one as she worked. Michelle was painting with the interns.
Name: Michelle
How did you become involved in this program? I had started with the City Wide program, and liked it a lot. I had done murals through college and grown up around Philadelphia. The program is different than I remember it, bigger. It means that everyone can participate.
Natalie Weiters was working on the benches that she was covering with mosaics when I approached. Her hands deftly cut the tile and glass as we talked, something that you would think would be very inaccurate, but she can do very precisely.
Name: Natalie Weiters
Medium: Mosaics and Tile work
What is the theme for the mosaics you're doing? The themes for the mosaics and the entire project is the flora and fauna of Puerto Rico. What I'm working on now is a singing frog that's only found there, that bench has butterflies and the last bench will have a sea turtle.
What experience do you have with the Mural Arts Program? I've worked very extensively with Kathleen Hewer but I've worked on a lot of other projects. I go to schools through Mural Arts to teach about mosaics and how to make them. I helped restore the Tree Man mural on 16th and South Street. This is my first time being in charge of an entire part of a project.
What do you hope to work on in the future? I would like to work on smaller indoor mosaics, doing an entire wall in mosaic is hard work.
It took an entire trip around the outside of the school to find David McShane. The walk made me truly appreciate the scale of the project. The mural literally wraps around the entire outside of the building and as we spoke, he mentioned that there was still an entire portion of the mural that hadn't been installed yet. He told me about the project as he painted.
Name: David McShane
Job: Head Artist for the Eagles Youth Program
What was your inspiration for this project? This is a primarily Puerto Rican neighborhood, so i drew my inspiration from the three cultures that make up the heritage of Puerto Rico; the indigenous culture, the Spanish or European culture and the African culture from the slave trade. There are elements from each culture. The flower pattern in the background is based off of Spanish tiles, there's a sun on another part of the wall that is similar to the indigenous cultures. The drawings that you see up at the top, that look like children's drawings actually were drawn by the students for this project.
Name: Michelle
How did you become involved in this program? I had started with the City Wide program, and liked it a lot. I had done murals through college and grown up around Philadelphia. The program is different than I remember it, bigger. It means that everyone can participate.
Natalie Weiters was working on the benches that she was covering with mosaics when I approached. Her hands deftly cut the tile and glass as we talked, something that you would think would be very inaccurate, but she can do very precisely.
Name: Natalie Weiters
Medium: Mosaics and Tile work
What is the theme for the mosaics you're doing? The themes for the mosaics and the entire project is the flora and fauna of Puerto Rico. What I'm working on now is a singing frog that's only found there, that bench has butterflies and the last bench will have a sea turtle.
What experience do you have with the Mural Arts Program? I've worked very extensively with Kathleen Hewer but I've worked on a lot of other projects. I go to schools through Mural Arts to teach about mosaics and how to make them. I helped restore the Tree Man mural on 16th and South Street. This is my first time being in charge of an entire part of a project.
What do you hope to work on in the future? I would like to work on smaller indoor mosaics, doing an entire wall in mosaic is hard work.
It took an entire trip around the outside of the school to find David McShane. The walk made me truly appreciate the scale of the project. The mural literally wraps around the entire outside of the building and as we spoke, he mentioned that there was still an entire portion of the mural that hadn't been installed yet. He told me about the project as he painted.
Name: David McShane
Job: Head Artist for the Eagles Youth Program
What was your inspiration for this project? This is a primarily Puerto Rican neighborhood, so i drew my inspiration from the three cultures that make up the heritage of Puerto Rico; the indigenous culture, the Spanish or European culture and the African culture from the slave trade. There are elements from each culture. The flower pattern in the background is based off of Spanish tiles, there's a sun on another part of the wall that is similar to the indigenous cultures. The drawings that you see up at the top, that look like children's drawings actually were drawn by the students for this project.
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