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The Philadelphia Inquirer Entertainment Thursday, October 3, 1996                                                     EVERYONE'S ART  

The Ogontz Avenue Art Company began with a single mural on a grocery in West Oak Lane. One picture led to another, and now there are 13  murals -- plus classes for the children who helped create the art.

 By Nicola E. Kuhn  INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

 It began two years ago when artist Peter Doyle read in the newspaper that Won's Food Market on the 6700 block of Ogontz Avenue in West Oak Lane had been hit again and again by graffiti. Jeff Pritchett, manager of the little grocery, had tried to keep the side wall clean by regularly painting it. 

So Doyle offered to make a mural -- something he could never do in his own neighborhood in Glenside, Montgomery County.  Then it happened: Doyle had hardly started when 8-year-old Joey Jordan joined him. After a while, Joey's five brothers followed. A few hours later, 15 children were there, helping him prepare the wall for the mural -- the first of many by what would become the Ogontz Avenue Art Company. 

Doyle had thought he was doing one piece of art that would take about a month. But dozens of kids wanted to participate, so he had to ask the manager of the supermarket to allow him to paint the back of the store, too.  ``I was captured by the kids,'' he says.  The “spoiled brat suburban artist”, as Doyle calls himself, is still in their thrall. Doyle, the father of two daughters, ages 19 and 23, quickly realized the meaning of his activity for these children: “The kids were proud of what they have done. They enhanced the quality of life for the residents.'' And for the neighborhood: ``Walls with murals are no longer tagged by graffiti. They disappear from places where murals are around, and where people take care of their surrounding.''

 Together with people from the neighborhood, Doyle founded the non-profit  Ogontz Avenue Art Company. He and three other artists have since done 13 murals, assisted by more than 400 children -- mainly 5 to 12 years old. The name of each participating child is written in red letters at the bottom of each mural. Now, around the city, people are requesting murals -- about 200 more. ``We said yes to every request,'' Doyle says, laughing. And the program has expanded: Last November, computer classes were established, in addition to art classes for children. Since the computer classes began last year, 20 children have passed the six-week course. Each child got a refurbished computer upon completion. ``We want them to get the tools that are needed for their future success,'' Doyle says.

Even though West Oak Lane is the center of the Ogontz Avenue Art Company, one of its best-known murals is farther south, in Nicetown, and can be seen from Roosevelt Boulevard. It shows basketball star Shaquille O'Neal sitting

on a mural painter's plank next to the son of the person who commissioned Doyle and his co-artists. At the bottom of the huge painting are the little colorful flowers, smiling faces, Mutant Ninja Turtles and other comic figures, the work of the children. 

While Doyle visits the Nicetown mural, little Nicholas Royster strolls around to say hello to ``Mister Pete,'' as Doyle is called by the children.   Nicholas has contributed to the mural: He painted the blue lines at the bottom. ``It was fun. I enjoyed it,'' Nicholas remembers. ``The kids can paint whatever they want,'' says Doyle, ``unless I don't like it.'' He has objected to themes about drugs and violence, he says, ``but this happened only twice.'' 

Today, the Ogontz Avenue Art Company thinks in practical planning terms --how to gain money for paint and brushes, how to find companies to donate used computers. Doyle and his board members have a philosophy, which can be

read on the group's Web page on the Internet: ``We take responsibility for our talent. We believe that we are blessed with gifts that need to be shared with the community. We believe that America's greatest resource is her children.'' 

The Web page is headed by an excerpt from Nelson Mandela's inaugural speech:

`Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. . . .'' 

Doyle and his friends want more than just a beautification program for neighborhoods that need one. ``Graffiti is only a symptom for serious diseases in our society,'' he says -- unemployment, hopelessness, abandoned neighborhoods.

Plenty of people support his view. James Wicks, a self-taught artist who lived all his life in the area around Ogontz Avenue, is vice president of the art company. The Rev. Harry Davis, whose Holy Temple of God Baptist Church is near the first mural at Won's Food Market, donates room for computer classes in his community center. Officer Dennis Jones from the neighborhood Police Athletic League also gave space for computer classes.  The art company also uses the NIA community center, on 16th Street near 68th Avenue.

Perhaps the best mark of the program's success in such a short time is the impression it has made on youngsters. Requests for mural painting and computer lessons are high. 

If you ask a group of them what they want to be when they grow up, they say, almost in a chorus, ``an artist.''``I'd like to be a painter, because it makes me feel happy,'' says Ashley Mudie, 6. ``People like the pictures.'' 

Adds Jonathan Jordan, 10, who painted the Ninja Turtles on one work: ``The  murals look better than graffiti.''

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Philadelphia Online --     The Philadelphia Inquirer, Entertainment--                    Copyright Thursday, October 3, 1996

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