Albright Artists Helping Transform Their Community

by Dylan Sokolovich

A meadow of larger-than-life sunflowers has recently sprouted in a new supermarket in West Reading. Then came a lonely brown cow, a farm and its silos, sprawling fields and mountains, and a radiant sunset of purples, yellows, and pinks. This landscape developed inside an unsuspecting building on Albright College’s campus in just a few weeks. Like most murals found in and around Reading, the stunning display is a collaboration between a community and an artist passionate about bringing people together. With this new 375-square-foot mural, designed within Albright’s Total Experience Learning Center, resident artist Mike Miller was able to transform an ordinary brick wall inside Kimberton Whole Foods into a rural escape, and create a group of people passionate about the art that represents their community.

Not only will this mural serve as a reminder of Kimberton’s farm-to-table approach, but it will also leave lasting effects on local artists and students who volunteered, says Miller. “There were probably over 100 people that helped paint this mural, so whenever they go into that store and see it, they’re going to have a different experience than just seeing it without knowing how it was made.” Among those contributing were four Albright students, Claire Barone ‘26, Mia Guyton ‘22, Amijae Shells ‘23 and Cary Shurtz ‘23, a small group a part of an innovative public art workshop class facilitated by Miller. During their painting sessions, they were joined by fellow students, community members, and over 50 students from Reading School Districts fifth grade Total Experience Learning Academy. The more people with a brush in their hand, the better, he says, noting that he wants painting a mural to be a collective action.

Schurtz, a senior art and English major, stumbled upon Miller’s course by chance, but she has learned a lot from it. She’s currently enrolled in Albright’s masters education, and she believes much of what she has learned could apply to a career in teaching. “I want to teach a class of individuals in art making, so sort of how to orchestrate a general idea and then have multiple hands collaborate on it,” says Shurtz. Miller seems to also have instilled his passion for community building onto Shurtz, emphasizing that the individualized way Miller creates his murals allows for “everyone to be proud of what they worked on.” “That’s what makes what I do a little more unique,” says Miller, “because I could paint murals on my own, and there are a lot of artists that do that, but I like the idea of working with groups of people together.”

Although Miller has been a celebrated muralist and teacher in Berks County for over 15 years, his path to a career as an artist wasn’t always straightforward. He was interested in art as early as he could remember, but when it came to college, he wasn’t sure what to pursue. Ultimately, he attended Kutztown University and later spent time working in graphic design. However, he struggled to become passionate about this work. “Making art is important to me, and when I was doing graphic design work all day, I felt like I was expelling all of my art energy,” says Miller. His need for a change led him back to Kutztown, where he received his teaching certificate. He spent 28 years teaching between the Conrad Weiser and Wyomissing school districts and explains, “I like teaching because I’m expelling a different energy all day working with students, and then I can still go home and make art all night long.”

When Miller secured a full-time position as a teacher, he returned to higher education and enrolled in graduate school. He attended the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, where he spent time developing his own art style. “I loved what I was making, I started showing my own work down in Philadelphia, I was being reviewed in The Inquirer, and I thought this was gonna be my side thing, just being a gallery artist in addition to teaching, I like that balance,” says Miller. He adds, “but then a friend took me on a Philadelphia mural tour, and I was like, oh my gosh, this is art that involves so much more than just my own ideas as an artist.”

Almost every street in Philadelphia is home to some form of a mural, inspiring one of the city’s many nicknames: “The Mural Capital of the World.” Beginning as an antigraffiti program in 1984, Mural Arts Philadelphia works to empower neighborhoods, repurposing public spaces while also creating positive dialogue among the community. With similar demographics and economic struggles, it was easy for Miller to draw a connection between Philadelphia and Reading. He noticed many neglected neighborhoods in Reading and decided that a program model based on Mural Arts Philadelphia would be well-suited for the city. “So then I kind of started doing that, and it started taking over my life when I was before making my art,” Miller says. From working on murals in his backyard to painting with hundreds of visitors at Albright, Miller has never lost sight of what his work is about.

In addition to helping create and paint the mural in Kimberton Whole Foods, the four students in Miller’s public art workshop class also had the chance to work individually on their own murals. Collaborating with Berks Nature, each student worked on silkscreen designs that were ultimately transferred to wheat paste posters. Perhaps inspired by Mural Arts Philadelphia, Miller proposed these projects to Berks Nature as a way to combat graffiti tagging experienced by Berks Nature. Shurtz’s piece, which features an array of colors and whimsical designs, made its way to Berks trails as well as right next door in Albright’s Freedman Gallery. “I learned a lot about how to sort of orchestrate a large-scale project and look at the different ways to incorporate both intricacy, but also sort of general compositional ideas to sort of make those whole, solidified pieces,” says Shurtz. Taking what she learned from Miller, she is continuing such a process as she works three-dimensionally in her sculpture topics class.

Miller has a close relationship with his work and the groups that worked together to spread a particular message. “I don’t think I have a favorite, you know, because that’s like your favorite kid, but I like them all for different reasons,” he says with a chuckle. However, he does show a particular admiration for “Sueños Migratorios ~ Hopes of Migration,”which resides on the 600 block of Greenwich Street in Reading. “I just loved it because I had a lot of autonomy and could just work with the students. And the students I was working with, they really owned the project; I think that’s why I loved it so much,” says Miller. “Sueños Migratorios” was created as a summer project organized by the Pennsylvania Migrant Program and in partnership with the Reading School District. The mural transformed a derelict brick wall into something beautifully symbolic, showcasing portraits of migrant children from Reading along with the migratory birds that travel through the community. “Sueños Migratorios”also presents a message of empowerment: “Just like birds, we migrate. We come from the Dominican Republic, Mexico, El Salvador, Puerto Rico, and other places. Many birds move with the seasons to find food and to raise their young. We came for a better life. Here in Reading, we get a better education and there are more opportunities. We want the opportunity to reach our goals, to fulfill ‘our dreams.’”

Miller’s love for collaboration extends across the Penn Street Bridge with the West Reading Mural Walk. About ten years ago, Miller was commissioned by Dean Rohrbach, the former manager of the borough’s Elm Street Program, to create a “Mural Corridor” on Kline Street between Second and Third Avenue. Miller worked with local artists and residents to develop six artworks in this one-block space. Since then, the project has grown into an extensive collection of over 30 murals on three blocks of Cherry Street, many of which are the work of Miller himself or accredited to his students. Many of the murals on Cherry Street are transformative visual scenes and narratives about the Reading area, reflecting the pride of local residents for their neighborhoods. With his arrival at Albright, it seems Miller has no plans of stopping, students and community members continuing to create in his public art workshop, including murals for SOS Berks and additional pieces for Kimberton Whole Foods.

Although Miller’s work leaves a lasting impact on the community, his murals are ephemeral, and one day they will all be gone. Despite this, he explains the deterioration process with a sense of appreciation. “A wall that faces south is going to see the sun more days of a year than a wall that faces north or east. But a wall that faces north is more susceptible to mildew and moisture, so then it’s going to deteriorate in other ways. It’s fascinating to see, especially after doing this for a long period of time and seeing how they change,” says Miller. “Sueños Migratorios” in particular is starting to show signs of such decline, the mural is beginning to weather, a parking lot and AutoZone all but block it. The work created by Albright students was also temporary, quickly peeling away without a trace. However, Miller seems fully aware that the communities he and these murals helped foster will continue to thrive long after the artwork is forgotten.

by Dylan Sokolovich & Kennedy Greene