Jane Golden to step down from Mural Arts Philadelphia

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After more than 40 years and more than 4,000 murals, the founding director of Mural Arts Philadelphia is stepping down. Jane Golden plans to retire in July of 2026.

She said it was not an easy decision.

“I could do this job forever,” Golden said. “I have gone back and forth with the notion of what would it be like to leave, thinking transition is good for an organization. I’ve been really cognizant about trying to create the next generation of leadership here at Mural Arts.”

“But you can see I’m ambivalent, right? That’s the honest answer,” she said. “I don’t really want to do it, but there will never be a time when I would say I want to do it. I love the work so much.”

Golden will see through 15 major projects coming to fruition in 2026, in time for the national semiquincentennial. Those projects include the following:

• A gateway project to beautify what people see as they enter and exit Philadelphia.
• A major mural along the CSX railroad approach to 30th Street Station.
• A four-mile public performance in Kensington “Vámonos pa’l monte (Let’s Go to the Mountains)” in celebration of Philadelphia’s Puerto Rican community.
• The completion of the Floatlab on the surface of the Schuylkill River at Bartram’s Garden.
• Murals in tribute to figures like Questlove, the band Boyz II Men, poet Frances Ellen Watkins Harper and LGBTQ+ heroes.
• “Printmaking by the People” in branches of the Free Library of Philadelphia to encourage residents to articulate what democracy means to them.

At the end of the 2025-2026 fiscal year in July, Golden will remain in place to assist the transition of her yet unidentified successor, then remain involved with Mural Arts on an “ambassador” basis for at least three months.

“Here is the scoop: I love this city. I’m unwavering about that. And I believe in the power of art. I believe in artists,” she said. “There’s more work to be done and I’m going to be exploring what else I can do.”

Telling the story of the city

Golden is largely responsible for Philadelphia’s reputation as a “city of murals,” a moniker earned not just by the sheer number of them, but also their social value. Since the early days, Golden knew that murals had to represent the communities where they are painted.

Mural Arts has pioneered techniques to engage residents in the conception of a new mural, ultimately leaving the final design up to the artist.

“Mural Arts is an international model for public art that doesn’t just grace the city with beauty, but that tells the story of a city,” said Kathryn Ott Lovell, president and CEO of the Philadelphia Visitor Center. She used to work for Mural Arts as Chief Advancement Officer.

“There are a lot of great public art organizations, locally and nationally,” she said. “But there’s nothing else like Mural Arts. There’s nothing else like it in the world.”

Through Golden’s leadership Mural Arts has made inroads into under-resourced neighborhoods, City Hall, law enforcement, prisons, public health services, addiction epidemics and homeless communities.

Everywhere she went, Golden discovered gifted artists. Mural Arts has become the single largest employer of artists in the city. By Golden’s estimation, she has given jobs to about 6,000 artists to make art, including prisoners and recently returned citizens through the Restorative Justice program, people experiencing homelessness through the Color Me Back cash day labor program and people recovering from opioid addiction via a storefront art workshop in Kensington.

“One of the wonderful things is the employment of artists, but even more so is the opportunity to have a voice, the opportunity to have your art within a community visible,” said artist Meg Saligman, who has worked with Mural Arts since the 1980s.

“Even if you’re in prison you have an opportunity to make a meaningful contribution to your society, “ she said. “Which is very valuable to all of us.”

One of the personal mantras of Golden is “Art ignites change.” She has been known to say it at any opportunity, insistently, often while pounding a table or hopping gleefully in place.

“It’s just one small thing, but I think the transcendent power of art to bring light into our lives is something that is real and profound and unending,” she said. “That is what has driven me for all these years. I only say it because I actually believe it. I’m not good at spin. When I say it, I get so excited all over again as if I’m saying it for the first time.”

The origins of Mural Arts Philadelphia

Mural Arts Philadelphia was born inside the Philadelphia Anti-Graffiti Network, a project started in 1984 by Tim Spencer during Mayor Wilson Goode’s administration to curb vandalism, mostly through various forms of punishment and control of graffiti writers.

Golden, as a part-time employee, suggested a carrot to go along with that stick: What if she rallied graffiti artists to channel their talents toward legal murals instead of illegal tags? In 1986, the anti-Graffiti Network launched that idea as the Mural Arts Program.

At the time, the network required participating graffiti writers to sign an official statement agreeing to no longer deface property, which Golden knew was never going to stick.

“Nobody was like, ‘I’m changing right away,’” she said. “Then they wrote my name. They wrote ‘Cool Jane.’ I’ve never been cool. I would just say, ‘You have to stop. You have to stop writing my name.’ Tim Spencer would go, ‘Who’s Jane?’ and they would say, ‘Oh, some girl from Kensington.’”

To the best of her knowledge, there are no ‘Cool Jane’ tags existing anymore.

“Once I was on Amtrak and I saw one,” Golden said. “It was funny.”

One of the caveats of the Mural Arts Program was a ban on spray paint. Golden said the Anti-Graffiti Network would allow its artists to paint on approved walls with brushes only. Spray paint was too closely associated with graffiti.

Over the years, Golden relaxed that rule.

“Spray is a tool like anything else,” she said. “I find good graffiti art fascinating. It’s beautiful. Some people have been critical, they’re like, ‘You can’t condone this.’ Well, I am hugely supportive of it, but it has to be done legally. That’s the litmus test for me.”

Those early years were not easy. Golden had bad equipment and supplies, which often got stolen. Wary residents often didn’t know what a mural was or why there should be one in their neighborhood. The work was done in all kinds of weather under impossible conditions.

“It’s not like there was a blueprint or a road map. We didn’t have a strategic plan. Nothing,” Golden said. “We had our will. We had passion. We had excitement.”

Golden’s’ first test came immediately. In 1984, Rev. Jesse Jackson chose Philadelphia as the first stop of his presidential campaign. Mayor Goode looked at the Spring Garden Bridge, the gateway to the mostly Black neighborhoods of West Philadelphia, and saw a mess: it was covered with graffiti.

The mayor wanted the entire 700-foot bridge repainted with a mural, and quickly.

“They said ‘If you can do this mural in three weeks, you could have a full-time job,’” Golden recalled. “I wanted that full-time job.”

“I had all the kids from Mantua, a crew of like 100 kids, mostly graffiti writers. It was so disorganized. We had a sketch and they kept deviating from the sketch,” she said. “Then we had this big dedication with all the news teams there. Wilson Goode looked to me and goes, ‘Well, I guess I owe you something.’ That full-time job. I went from $12,500 to $20,000. I was so excited.’”

Finding a successor

In 1996, the Anti-Graffiti Network was absorbed into the city’s Parks and Recreation Department, becoming the Graffiti Abatement Program and the Paint Voucher Program to prevent and clean up graffiti. Mural Arts was spun off as an independent organization supported by public and private funds.

In 2016, it changed its name to Mural Arts Philadelphia. It now has a $16 million annual budget, less than a quarter of which comes from the city.

“Art changes lives,” Mayor Cherelle Parker said. “As we honor Jane’s remarkable impact on Philadelphia’s social and physical landscape, we look ahead with excitement to the future of Mural Arts.”

Parker moved Mural Arts from Parks and Recreation into the office of arts and culture, now called Creative PHL.

“I’m both saddened and excited for Jane,” said Val Gay, Philadelphia’s chief cultural officer who oversees Mural Arts in City Hall. “But I’m saddened for all of us, in that she is a legend.”

The growth of Mural Arts over four decades can be attributed, in part, to Golden’s raw energy. She has been known to intimidate elected officials who follow her at dedication events because they cannot match the same degree of energy at the podium.

Gay believes Mural Arts is stable enough to carry on without its founder’s infectious energy.

“I think we have the benefit of two things: One, we have the benefit of a personality, but we also have a strong organization,” she said. “Sometimes they don’t always go together. Mural Arts is a vibrant and well-run organization with a great staff.”

But Lovell is not so certain. In her office at the Visitors’ Center, she said tourism is driven, in part, by Philadelphia’s public art, of which murals play a huge role. She cannot see a way forward for Mural Arts without Golden.

“I don’t know what Mural Arts is without Jane. It is Jane and Jane is it,” she said. “It makes me anxious because I love the organization. I love the program. It makes me very nervous about what the future holds.”

The search for a new executive director has not yet begun. Board Chair Hope Comisky said a search committee has formed with the understanding that finding someone with the same characteristics as Golden is unrealistic.

“We can’t do that. We’re not putting any parameters around who that person will be,” she said. “That’s why it really is important – and we’re delighted – that Jane has agreed to continue at least for another three months after the official ending of her term to help us navigate through all of the issues we may encounter.”

Now what?

Golden said she does not yet know what she will do after her tenure with Mural Arts ends next year. After 40 years of making personal and professional sacrifices in favor of the organization, she said she needs to find her footing.

“I want to spend more time with my husband. I want to spend more time with friends, like, ‘Hi, remember me? Jane Golden? I’m your friend,’” she said. “We have a dog, we have two cats. The cats, meh. But the dog is great.”

Without the demands of Mural Arts, Golden may revisit an old desire to run for public office.

“I’ve worked for six mayors. That’s something, isn’t it? I love city government. I just love policy and politics,” she said. “Secretly, I would like to run for City Council. Now, I don’t know. But I used to dream about it back in the day.”

“The city, to me, is like a math puzzle. How does it work? How does it work more effectively? And then the question is: What role can art play?” Golden said. “That has kept me in this job because that question is one that is never answered in a final way.”