About the Project

In Spring of 2013, Mural Arts invited Arizona-based artist and physician, Jetsonorama, to Philadelphia to work with students at Sayre High School in West Philadelphia. An avid photographer, Jetsonorama lives and works in the Navajo Nation where he captures images of individuals and their communities on the Native American Reservation. After garnering attention from the street art world, he began traveling the world doing workshops and replicating his practice, using wheat pasted, enlarged black and white photographs to highlight and give voice to underrepresented individuals.

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Upon arriving in Philadelphia, Jetsonorama was very interested in connecting with a local artist. He mentioned his admiration for poet and recording artist Ursula Rucker and the two quickly began working together. At Sayre, Jetsonorama captured student portraits while Rucker created a collaborative poem with the students, based on the theme of love. A series of large student portraits was created at Sayre High School with words from the poem overlaid. In response to Jetsonorama and Philadelphia’s admiration for Ursula, a second project was developed that celebrates Ursula’s influence and importance on Philadelphia’s creative and cultural landscape. The end result is a stunning, larger-than-life  portrait of Ursula Rucker with an excerpt of her well-known and inspirational poem,
“l. o. v. e.”