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Conrad Booker, of Fifth and Catharine streets, was chatting with neighbor Charlie Branes about a year ago. Branes, who lives on Fulton Street, was lamenting a standstill about getting a muralist to paint the Fulton side wall of 770 S. Fourth St. Booker, an artist, architect, fabricator and interior designer, said he was up for the challenge.
“I just said I’d paint the mural and [Barnes] thought I was kidding. He asked if I knew what I’d paint. … I went back and surveyed the site and came back with the concept,” Booker, 51, said.
Over the next few months Conrad refined the concept and, with Branes, presented it to the Queen Village Neighborhood Association. Through ongoing neighbors’ donations and some funds from the civic, the $13,000 project got the go ahead. Booker plans to start on the piece as soon as the supplies — which already have been ordered — arrive.
“I’m sort of guestimating a month-and-a-half [to complete the project],” Booker, who will have some volunteer help, said. “I have a background in architecture and also was the creative director of an architecture firm for about 15 years. There, I did a lot of architectural renderings and things.
“I haven’t done murals murals, but done a lot of renderings. This past winter I did six large mural panels for the Mummers.”
The design for the wall was inspired by Booker’s most recent installation entitled “Metamorphosis.” The multivenue work — which spanned three locales, the South Philly spot being Bus Stop Boutique, 727 S. Fourth St. — featured three-dimensional cutouts of butterflies made from soda and beer cans. The final mural design, however, incorporates other aspects of the area’s storied history.
“I have a friend that works at the University of Pennsylvania in the map department or something like that and he was able to show me a website that has all maps of Philadelphia going back to like 1700,” Booker, an 11-year Queen Village resident, said. “It’s a map of that part of the street — the Weccacoe Playground, as well as the street that I live on.”
The title of the work that Booker said received high praise when showcased at civic meetings is “Harmony and the Windows of Curiosities.”
“Back in 1862 Fulton Street was called Harmony Street and the ‘windows of curiosity’ are windows that will be existing on the [real work] as well as on the symbolic — windows of the past, present and future,” the artist said. “There are going to be three large synthetic glass windows that will be part of the mural.”
In Buffalo, N.Y., a 10-year-old Booker was preparing for a career in the arts.
“Actually, I really liked ‘The Brady Bunch’ and Mr. Brady was an architect,” he said. “Because of him I told my mom I wanted a Craftsman set.”
By 1986 Booker had graduated from Temple University with an architecture degree. Hired directly out of school, he began working for an area firm, but, in ’90, had started up his freelance work, which is the majority of his professional focus today.
“I don’t really do architecture architecture, I do more freelance design work for architects and interior designers. That encompasses architectural renderings, pillows, drapes, upholstery,” Booker said. “If you can’t find something that you need, I’m the guy. They do all the drawings and concept and I make it.”
Doing this work from his basement for the past 22 years has allowed the level of freedom, autonomy and fulfillment Booker anticipated and allowed his other creative faculties free reign. Showcasing his work from Philadelphia to New York, Booker has created installations in public spaces.
“Cutting out magazines and creating faces and portraits out of different various collages, all kinds of stuff, and using telephone books to create art — that’s kind of what I like,” he said. “That’s what I am really drawn more towards versus depicting art in terms of painting and drawing.”
His work has been finding it’s way onto local businesses’ walls, where many residents may have seen it without knowing.
“This past February I did a show at Colonial Wall Covering, [707 E. Passyunk Ave]. I tend to like those kind of venues,” he said.
Booker would love to have a show in a gallery some day, but having people find his art has been working so far.
“I had originally had a show at Red Hook Coffee,” Booker said of the 765 S. Fourth St. brew house. “And a curator saw my show and was taken with it and wanted to curate a show that encompassed several places.”
What transpired was the “Metamorphosis” exhibit that lends inspiration to the upcoming Fulton Street mural.
“I tend to, recently, be really drawn to finding found objects and more reuse and recycling of elements and I’ve always liked making art from things that people don’t normally see art in,” Booker said.
For the upcoming project, the artist hopes, as with most murals, the “Harmony” work will curb the graffiti and detritus that has plagued the area. But he also hopes it does a little more.
“I just always like to take on challenges and to see where they lead. And, to be honest, the wall looks pretty bad. I would hope people would respect it. We do plan on putting an anti-graffiti finish on it so that it will be easy to take off any tagging,” he said. “And I do hope people take something away from it.”
The mural will serve multiple purposes, then, not the least of which is an added level of engagement and information for neighbors.
“One thing that we’re doing that a lot of murals that I’ve seen haven’t done is that we will have a QR code that people will be able to link up to a website developed for it that will talk about the history of the mural and identifiable elements on the mural — dedications and stuff like that,” Booker said. “So neighbors can keep up to date on that.”
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
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