The ‘Weaving a Bountiful Harvest’ mural on the Weavers Way Germantown building. (Photo: Rasheed Z. Ajamu)
Last Friday afternoon, June 12, community outshone the rain during a mural dedication in the Weavers Way Germantown parking lot.
Pretzels, a DJ, sweets, an art activity, and more helped set the tone as attendees gathered to celebrate the completed ‘Weaving a Bountiful Harvest’ project on the side of the 328 W. Chelten Ave. building facing Morris St.
Alongside community members, representatives from Mural Arts, Weavers Way, and Germantown United CDC (GUCDC) gathered to celebrate the completion of ‘Weaving a Bountiful Harvest.’
Imagined and designed by Euhri Jones, the mural seeks to honor land, food, and community connection. “To me, this project is a way to celebrate our network of relationships,” the artist told the crowd.
The mural depicts the Wissahickon landscape, stretching across Germantown, Roxborough, Manayunk, East Falls, Mount Airy, and Chestnut Hill. As the project description notes, it celebrates “the natural abundance and seasonal rhythms… highlighting the interconnected processes that sustain local food and community life.”
Using bold, bright colors, Jones’ mural features the “three sisters” crops — corn, beans, and squash — alongside native plants, pollinators, and organic forms. Together, these elements represent growth cycles and interdependence. Inspired by one in the basement of Weavers Way Germantown, a depicted central loom symbolizes how soil, seeds, seasons, and people intertwine.
“The initial concept for this mural was to illustrate our relationship to the plants that nourished us,” said Jones. “Great conversations during community meetings helped us expand that story to show that it’s people who weave this neighborhood together.”
She emphasized that many of the things on the wall could be found within the market where the mural resides and possess deeper ties.
“These blue-purple flowers over here represent a different agricultural history of this area, flax farming, which was connected to textile manufacturing,” she explained. “And the leaves with the serrated edges that you see repeated a little bit around here are a delicious plant, used a lot in Korean cuisine.”
Also honoring a Germantown legend, the mural includes lines from Sonia Sanchez’s haiku, ‘for mungu and morani and the children of soweto.’ It reads:
may yo seasons be
long with endless green streets and
permanent summer legs
Ninety-one-year-old poet Sonia Sanchez attended the momentous ceremony and was thanked by the various stakeholders for her work and presence.
Mural Arts founder and Executive Director Jane Golden opened and emceed the program. She spoke about the intimacy of projects like Jones’ within the communities where they appear.
She said: “When we use the term public art, we mean that it is a partnership between the artist and the community… the work you see around the city is truly the autobiography of the city of Philadelphia. It is not art that just drops down from the sky mysteriously.”
Since its founding in 1984, the organization has helped bring over 4,000 artworks to the city. Mural Arts helps produce anywhere between 50 and 100 murals each year.
This mural was one of two mural unveilings in the neighborhood this past weekend. The other was Saturday, June 13’s, Sun Ra Arkestra mural debut at October Gallery.
Mural Artist Euhri Jones thanked Mural Arts, Weavers Way, GUCDC, West Chelten Neighbors Association, and project manager Sarah Kolker, a Germantowner, for their collaborative efforts. She also thanked mural assistant artists Janice Kim, Pearl McShane, and young Germantowner Samiha Hadeed.
GUCDC Executive Director Leo Dillinger IV spoke at the gathering about how public art can boost economic development.
“[Public art] helps create a sense of place, strengthen community identity, and encourage people to spend more time in our commercial districts,” he said. “These improvements build community pride while helping to create momentum for future investment.”
Weavers Way General Manager Jon Roesser told attendees that they see the mural as part of a broader effort to beautify the Chelten Ave. commercial corridor.
He said: “We have a vision for street trees and better pedestrian walkways and, you know, all these little steps. And this is not such a little step, is it? It’s a big step.”
Rasheed Z. Ajamu is a Germantown-born and raised Black journalist, reporting from a place-based lens to see how things affect life in Germantown. They strive to preserve the stories of Black natives in an ever-changing Philadelphia and Germantown social landscape.