It\u2019s been a ton of fun,\u201d said Leslie Stuart Matthews, a Wayne-based artist who is helping to bring the Ministry of Awe to life. \u201cAnytime artists to come together and make art together in a collaborative way, even if we\u2019re working on our own projects, is always really fun.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt creates an atmosphere that\u2019s much like when you were doing things at school or when you were doing good projects at work or where people like to be together and doing stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
While the artists have been working in the same space, they are excited to see the final project.<\/p>\n
\u201cI dropped off my contribution and I am looking forward to how it will all come together,\u201d said Bala Cynwyd artist Jonathan Mandell. \u201cI know loosely just from conversation with Meg the direction, but I haven\u2019t seen the other artists work other than some of Meg\u2019s and they were doing like murals on the walls. It\u2019s a six-story building, so we were going up and down the staircase and they were detailing in and around there. I\u2019m going to be as surprised as anybody.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"Artist](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1772718915_255_Tally-of-Money-Triptych-Completed.jpg\")
Artist Jonathan Mandell has created a history of money triptych for the Ministry of Awe in Philadelphia. (COURTESY OF JONATHAN MANDELL)<\/p>\n
Mandell, who works mostly in mosaics, has created a three-panel work of art he describes as the history of money.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs a playful jump from ancient to modern, I fashioned some of the background grout lines to mimic the iconic up and down angles of a stock graph,\u201d Mandell wrote to describe his piece. \u201cThe three panels in this triptych stand alone as individual visual commentary and aesthetic and they work in harmony with one another, telling the story of the tally of money over the span of a millennia.\u201d<\/p>\n
Matthews\u2019 vision is a little different.<\/p>\n
Titled \u201cStairway from Heaven,\u201d it leads guests down the stairs from the large \u201cHeavens\u201d gallery.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have designed a space of converging waterfalls to exit Heaven,\u201d Matthews said. \u201cThe beauty of heaven transitions to blinding fluorescent waterfalls that fall from red hot clouds to black and white. The beauty is almost too much to leave behind.<\/p>\n
![\"Wayne](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1772718915_794_Leslie-Matthews-at-Ministry-of-Awe.jpg\")
Wayne artist Leslie Matthews is putting the finishing touches on her part of the Ministry of Awe. (COURTESY OF MINISTRY OF AWE)<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a stairway from heaven, but it\u2019s not supposed to be miserable. It\u2019s just supposed to be a little bit shocking.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of the experience\u2019s central environments invites visitors to contribute words, voices, and gestures into a living celestial space, where human presence becomes light, sound and stars. Over time, these contributions are gathered into an evolving mural: A growing archive shaped by everyone who enters and continually reinterpreted as the experience changes.<\/p>\n
Throughout the building, institutional artifacts have been reimagined as sites of play and reflection: vaults, teller stations, identity verification devices, confession booths, and celestial chambers appear in unexpected forms. Guests may rifle through drawers, navigate labyrinth corridors, interact with performers, or happen upon quiet moments of discovery, all without a prescribed order or endpoint.<\/p>\n
\u201cAt this bank, we trade in curiosity, imagination, and awe,\u201d says Saligman. \u201cOur bank is about exploring the true meaning of currency and value, and completely redefining it. Whatever you bring, we will welcome and value it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 19th century bank on North Third Street in Philadelphia has sat abandoned for years. Artist Meg Saligman…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[1681,28,69,1212,71,70,289,10356],"class_list":["post-130360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-entertainment","tag-pennsylvania","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-county","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-news","tag-things-to-do","tag-top-stories-trt"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130360\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}