Arts Education

Porch Light Story Quilt

Rebecca Schultz at Council Rock

Opening for “Time and Place” exhibit at the Kensington Storefront

From December 2017 – February 2018, I facilitated a workshop series at the Mural Arts Kensington Storefront, resulting in a story quilt created in collaboration with community members. The storefront is part of Porch Light, an ongoing partnership between Mural Arts and Philadelphia’s Department of Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services. There are many organizations engaged in Kensington, all working toward transforming a community fractured by drug addiction, crime, and housing insecurity. The storefront serves as a workshop for visiting artists, a safe space for neighbors, and a learning hub for anyone interested in art-making, personal and public safety, or self-care—but it also serves as a hub for area organizations, with the intention of working more effectively together. Workshop participants identified symbols that represented them and created them out of fabric, and then incorporated them into the larger quilt. The letters in the quilt corners stand for struggle/survival, freedom, love, and Kensington.