Jane Golden

Executive Director

Mural Arts Program

Philadelphia, PA USA

“Those of us who have privilege, what we need to do is shift the paradigm and try to use that privilege to help people who have less.”

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By Roadtrip Nation

Jane Golden

Milestones

My road in life has been direct.

I grew up in New Jersey but moved to California for college.

I graduated from Stanford University and then moved to Los Angeles, where I started painting murals—I fell in love with murals because of the way they give access to art to everyone.

After being diagnosed with lupus, I moved back home to the East Coast.

As I got stronger, I applied for a position with a new anti-graffiti network in Philadelphia and was hired to run the art program.

I worked closely with a lot of young graffiti writers and found that they had a lot of talent—we took them to art museums, connected them with well-known artists, and started painting murals together.

The murals really took off—people loved them and only a very small percentage of them would be defaced by graffiti.

When the Mural Arts Program was reorganized, I was named the executive director.

The Mural Arts Program has been very successful in bringing access to art to everyone in the community—we currently have over 2,800 murals across all neighborhoods in Philadelphia!

Keep following my journey