Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
When Joyce Chester drives down Chestnut Street, as she does every day, she\u2019s nervous, wondering: Is it still there? Has it been painted over yet?<\/p>\n
Chester, the Friends Association\u2019s chief executive officer, is thinking about the vibrant mural that overlooks the street, as it has since 2022 after it was commissioned by the homelessness prevention organization. But Friends Association opened a new location earlier this year. And the old building\u2019s new occupant is looking to have the mural, painted by West Chester<\/a> University student Noah Burns, removed.<\/p>\n Chester said she has talked to the mayor and the borough council. Though there aren\u2019t any imminent plans for its removal, the building\u2019s new owner is exploring removing the mural, according to Hello, West Chester<\/a>. There\u2019s no ordinance protecting the artwork. It could be the first time the borough has ever dealt with a situation quite like this.<\/p>\n But as a private property, there\u2019s little any public official would be able to do to preserve it if the new occupants decide they truly want it gone. (The mayor and borough\u2019s Public Arts Commission did not respond to a request for comment. The new occupants could not be reached.)<\/p>\n It makes Chester sick.<\/p>\n \u201cI really feel heartbroken about it,\u201d she said. \u201cThe day they paint over it, I may be brought to tears, quite frankly.\u201d<\/p>\n When the Friends Association moved, Chester worried that something like this could happen. But she felt there was no reason to paint over the vibrant rendering of a person\u2019s peaceful face with an outstretched hand, framed by depictions of homes, that has looked over Chestnut Street for years.<\/p>\n \u201cOnce something goes up on a building like that in a community, it kind of belongs to the community,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n The Friends Association commissioned Burns ahead of his freshman year to paint the mural. Burns, who is now 23 and will graduate this year after studying art and design, grew up in the area. His high school teacher forwarded him the Friends Association\u2019s call for art, and he decided to go for it.<\/p>\n The Friends Association was open to his artistic interpretation of the concepts of housing, compassion, and inclusivity. He spent one hot summer bringing the final design to life, something he found to be a more physical experience than sitting down and painting a canvas or working digitally.<\/p>\n The work was supported by the borough\u2019s Public Arts Commission, helping with the call for artists and the application process. Its members, fellow artists, helped paint it that summer, too. It features on their website, and on West Chester University<\/a>\u2019s art department page.<\/p>\n It was cool and \u201cdefinitely different\u201d to do something on such a scale, and to see that work publicly displayed, Burns said. He moved to Philadelphia as he finished up his degree, and heard about the potential removal through his ties still in the community \u2014 his friends and family \u2014 and circulating social media posts.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve already gone through my stages of grief. I\u2019m somewhere between denial and acceptance,\u201d he said. \u201cI want to try to fight for it, but I\u2019m also semi-removed. I\u2019ve been joking, it\u2019s kind of serendipitous, I\u2019ve removed myself from the space physically, and then any remnants of myself have been torn down.\u201d<\/p>\n When the mural was first unveiled, Burns recalls saying in his remarks that a lot of young people in the area need to be seen and heard. He felt like the mural was the start of something like that.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s less about the mural itself, more about what it means to the space. The mural can get taken down, as long as they put something up that carries that value in the space \u2014 I could agree with that,” he said. \u201cBut just to paint over it, to give it the landlord treatment, I think that\u2019d be something of a loss.\u201d<\/p>\n This suburban content is produced with support from the Leslie Miller and Richard Worley Foundation and The Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Editorial content is created independently of the project donors. Gifts to support The Inquirer\u2019s high-impact journalism can be made at inquirer.com\/donate. A list of Lenfest Institute donors can be found at lenfestinstitute.org\/supporters<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min When Joyce Chester drives down Chestnut Street, as she does every day, she\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":564212,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88,249684],"class_list":["post-564211","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-west-chester-mural-friends-association"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=564211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/564211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/564212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=564211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=564211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=564211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}