Berwyn artist Casey Saccomanno will create a mural for her hometown and serves on the Main Line’s new Mural Arts Commission.
Your daily drive along Lancaster Ave. is about to get a lot more colorful.
A new group, Mural Arts Commission (MAC) of the Main Line, is sponsoring the creation of murals on blank walls up and down the Pike.
Spearheaded by civic-minded landlord/developer Eadeh Enterprises, MAC has already identified five locations and is finalizing each site’s artist and design. The ground rules for images: no politics, no profanity and no advertising.
Murals will first appear in MAC’s own backyard – Berwyn and Devon – but the goal is to expand to other towns, adding up to five new murals each year.
“Philadelphia has 4,000 murals and is the mural capital of the world – so that was a huge inspiration,” says Eadeh President and CEO Stacey Ballard. “And the Eadeh family has always been supportive of the visual arts.”
Indeed, the Eadehs commissioned Berwyn’s first mural across from Clay’s Bakery in 2005 and its updated version (below) in 2021.
Ernest Eadeh’s two daughters sit on the new MAC board alongside Ballard, Eadeh Marketing Director Lily Tooher, Oliver Rocks founder Lauren Feldman, Kramer Drive’s Anna Robertson, and Berwyn artist Casey Saccomanno, among others.
Two locations will sport postcard-style welcomes to their respective towns not unlike this iconic Florida mural:
The “postcard” welcome sites are First Commonwealth Bank in Devon:
and SmartSense Cleaners in Berwyn:
MAC member Casey Saccomanno has already signed on to paint one of her signature florals near Berwyn’s StudioFlora, on the side of the Lift, Strength & Wellness studio.
Midtown Social owner Mike DiDomenico has greenlit a mural on his blank wall facing Main Street in Berwyn.
The fifth spot is the side of the Medi-Weightloss building where the design will reference “The Secret Garden.”
In addition to five established artists, Conestoga junior Sarah Bernholdt will paint murals on three transformer boxes for her Girl Scout Gold Award project.
The pro artists will be paid for their work and reimbursed for supplies.
Eadeh and private donations are supporting this first round. Going forward, MAC expects to become a 501(c)3 nonprofit to spur tax-free donations from the general public.
“Our goal is to impress Main Liners with these first five murals so hopefully people will want to get involved and support arts in our community,” says Ballard. “We think turning a sometimes boring landscape into something colorful and interesting can be something that brings the community together.”
The first artists will start painting this summer. Keep an eye out.
It would be nice to include local artist, David Gerbstadt, in the new murals!