Love Letter

Something I found whilst looking at another blog www.hurtyoubad.com, I find this work very inspirational as I'm very interested in hand drawn/painted advertising and this is an example of it on a huge scale. 'Love Letter' is a project that has been produced by Stephen Powers alongside the City of Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. It is an 'ambitous urban beautification' project with messages are about love and reconciliation, something I think is very important in inner city environments encouraging people to feel and respond to it.

"After I stopped writing my name on stuff, I made a lateral move into sign painting. The materials were essentially the same, (enamel on metal), the colors were similar, (bold and garish are best) but the effect was totally different. When you paint graffiti, you are an outsider that is broadcasting your signal to the center of the community. When you paint a sign, you are broadcasting from the center of the community to the periphery. Graffiti is youth testing out a microphone, Signs speak into the mike eloquently and with authority. Even as a teenager I could see a huge difference in how my work was percieved versus the painted signs that commanded respect.

The is an amazing painted sign tradition that permeates the landscape in West Philadelphia. I'll be adding many more pictures in time, but look at these and see the direction we're going to take this project. We'll be reviving the dead arts of sign painting and wall-writing; The bricks were painted 40-80 years ago and they remind us that West Philly was a powerful place of mercantile style and industrial might, and could be again."