Swords to Ploughshares
- Artists
- Jovana Sarver, Emmeline Zhu
- Location
- 1316 North 3rd Street, Harrisburg, PA
This mural was installed on the side of the Broad Street Army & Navy Store, located just down the street from Harrisburg’s Broad Street Market, as part of Sprocket’s 2019 mural festival. Very early on, this wall was eyed by Sprocket as a great potential mural site, because of its location and affinity for graffiti. But it took several years to make a mural on this wall happen.
The mural shows a World War II veteran returning home to a Pennsylvania farm lush with produce – a nod to the healing power of getting your hands in the dirt.
Dubbed “Swords to Ploughshares,” the piece utilizes a common phrase about swords getting melted down after war for farming tools. It draws inspiration from a program run by its sponsor PA Preferred – “Homegrown By Heroes,” which provides farming opportunities for veterans.
“We thought it was a powerful concept to transform destructive tools of war – swords – into a creative tool – ploughshares – that benefits humanity,” explained the mural’s creators Jovana Sarver and Emmeline Zhu. “A high number of veterans return home with both visible and invisible wounds. Farming is a meaningful and rewarding vocation that offers many psychological benefits.”
Both first-time muralists, Sarver and Zhu partnered together to collaborate on this project. Sarver, a botanical dyer who grew up farming, based the home in the mural around her family’s fourth-generation dairy farm in Perry County. She pictured the man in the piece as her grandfather returning home to the farm after war. Zhu’s artistic background in nature illustration brought depth to the scenery.
This piece was produced using “parachute cloth” or a non-woven fabric, which can be painted off-site and adhered to the wall using an acrylic gel.
“We really enjoyed this process and learned so much about mural-making,” the artists said. “We both love nature and particularly enjoyed painting all of the plants, produce, and animals. We hope that passersby feel peaceful and hopeful when they walk by this artwork.”
