Multiple mural projects brighten neighborhoods

As Pittsburgh students began returning to schools this week, some of them were surprised by new public murals brightening their neighborhoods.
Others weren’t surprised—they’d helped paint them.

“I’m painting raindrops right now,” said 16-year-old Jo’nelle Arrington as she worked on a mural that now adorns the Community Empowerment Association in Homewood. “I like it because it helps change the community. It makes it happier, makes it better.”
The CEA mural was a project of local artist Kyle Holbrook’s Moving the Lives of Kids Community Mural Project. Artist Rashad Jamal mapped out the design for the students, who he said worked on the project for about five weeks.
“I’m a fan of public art because it does a service by providing something other then blight for people to focus on in underserved communities,” he said.

“And it gets kids involved—that’s a positive thing. I’d rather have them doing this than just running the streets. It keeps them out of trouble, or at least I like to think so.”
But Jamal isn’t the only one thinking that way, or using murals to revive the spirits in underserved Black communities. On Aug. 6, just a few blocks away, at the YMCA Homewood-Brushton Child Development Center, artist Lynne Mack mapped out a mural, in paint-by-numbers fashion, that six student then completed.
It was one of four such projects sponsored by PPG as part of its global Colorful Communities initiative that, in partnership with the United Way of Southwestern Pennsylvania, is now sprucing up schools and community centers back home in Pittsburgh.
Sue Sloan, PPG executive director of corporate global social responsibility, said Colorful Communities provides PPG volunteers and products along with financial contributions to bring color and vitality to communities where the company operates. In addition to providing renovation assistance, PPG also offered program grants of $10,000 for each Pittsburgh organization to enrich programming related to science, math and technology learning.
“Each project is an opportunity for PPG to enhance, protect and beautify our neighborhoods by revitalizing and transforming community spaces and buildings,” said Sloan.
“We know that bright colors can lift spirits and moods and impact people in positive ways. And no project would be complete without the expertise and enthusiasm of our employee and community volunteers.”
More than 60 Pittsburgh-area PPG employees joined the kids, volunteering their time to paint and refurbish classrooms and corridors at the four sites. The other mural sites were Propel Pitcairn, which was completed Aug. 10, the Jeron X Grayson Center that Cares in the Hill District, completed Aug. 20, and the Boys & Girls Club of Southwestern Pennsylvania in Shadyside, completed Aug. 23.
Mural artists D.S. Kinsel and Dante Lombardi from the Boom Concepts artist co-op designed the Grayson Center mural.
(J.L. Martello contributed to this story.)
 
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