Riverwards residents who have been out and about these past few days may have noticed a mural being painted at the corner of Susquehanna and Belgrade in Fishtown. Neighborhood resident James Bill recently commissioned the street artist Gaia to paint the piece on the side of his candy store turned house.

Bill was introduced to Gaia through a friend of his after seeing the side of the new house and wondering if a mural would improve the somewhat bare space. This was further driven by Philadelphia’s flourishing public art scene—something that his previous home of Boston lacked—and that he was interested in participating in. Because Gaia was only in town for a short period of time, Bill jumped on the opportunity to lock down an artist whose work is highly regarded on an international level.

“The fact that I’m able to put a mural on my wall makes me feel like I’m really part of the community and part of a conversation that is going on in terms of real estate and all the new architectural stuff,” Bill said. “It’s the recognition that I’m sort of part of the Philly thing, which is very cool.”

Gaia was able to take advantage of the vast blank wall to exact his vision: Two row homes—one made of bricks and traditional architecture, one typical of the boxy new homes being built in the neighborhood—nestled in between peaks in Yosemite National Park. The background of Yosemite is based off a painting by Albert Bierstadt, a painter known for his breathtaking images of the American West.

When commissioned to do a mural, Gaia does extensive research into the community that he will be painting in, poring over whatever books and internet articles he can find. He then creates a proposal based on his research and brings it to the person who commissioned the work: Sometimes they approve and he begins immediately, sometimes they don’t and they collaborate to make changes.

PHOTOS: NEW GAIA MURAL IN THE WORKS AT SUSQUEHANNA & BELGRADE IN FISHTOWN, PHOTOS WILL BE UPDATED THROUGHOUT DAY

With this mural, Gaia hoped to portray the spirit that permeates Fishtown today.

“Whenever I’m working in a neighborhood that’s experiencing a lot of reinvestment, especially in the United States, I’ll use American aesthetics of landscapes and [the] sublime…I usually use the notion of frontier and it’s darkness, in terms of the American imagination and manifest destiny, and the idea that real estate is a constant frontier,” Gaia said. “It’s a way of speaking not-too-literally about gentrification. I’m using this really beautiful background of the landscape to talk more specifically with these building elements to talk more specifically about shifting identity.”

From what Gaia and Bill communicated and what the staff at The Spirit saw over the two days the mural was painted, community response has been overwhelmingly positive. While there were a few naysayers, most people were excited to see a new mural going up in their neighborhood. One woman interjected a simple “that’s awesome” while Gaia was being interviewed next to his mural. Even some of the critics were swayed once they saw a more complete picture of the mural. Bill recalled one woman who told him that she hated it upon seeing the outline at first. She came back later and said that she had been moved to tears when she saw the a near-complete version of the mural.