The chauffeur waits in a white stretch limo for the two women, both artists in their 50s, both named Jane.

One is glamorous, with camera-ready makeup, lustrous curls, and impeccable figure.

The other is '60s-hipster plain. Thick shoulder-length hair, T-shirt and dark trousers, slouchy socks and black suede desert boots.

They're laughing as if they've been friends for years, but they met only the night before. That was at the Wall Ball, the annual fund-raiser for Philadelphia's Mural Arts Program, widely considered the premier public art agency in the nation.

Jane Seymour, the actress, she of the multiple Golden Globes, was staying at the Loew's hotel. An artist herself, she was heading to the Jersey Shore the next morning for a one-woman show of her paintings.

When she walked into the ballroom, filled with the city's glitterati, she created a small buzz. But the star of the evening was Jane Golden, who for the last 25 years has served as fierce mother to Mural Arts, one of Philadelphia's most beloved, and sometimes vilified, organizations. Where some see inspiration, others see polemics.

Mayor Nutter, Golden's longtime friend, took the microphone in tribute, calling her - affectionately - a pest. Everyone laughed, knowing that her idealist's zeal makes her inexhaustible, and at times irritating.

Trying not to panic, Araceliz Heredia, 17, a high school junior from Kensington, spoke movingly of how Mural Arts had given her confidence, a scholarship, and a way to help her community.

Seymour, who also funds art programs for inner-city kids, was impressed. Golden's response - would she like a personal mural tour? - was as reflexive as Ty Pennington asking to show the TV audience the finished house.

Now the limo driver crosses the Vine Expressway and the two Janes come upon portraits of immigrants Golden and a group of teens painted over a graffiti wall in 1994.

"Look at that one!" Seymour gasps.

They zigzag through Fishtown and Fairmount, over to Girard, then Ridge, guided by the map in Golden's head of the city's nearly 2,800 murals.

All along, Golden's warm hazel eyes light up as she tells stories. About Mrs. Hodges, the grandmother who made lemon cake for the muralists painting the side of her rowhouse. About the portrait of Herman Wrice, an activist in Mantua. About the 3,000 kids MAP works with every year and the school where students welded a fence of lovely metal flowers.

Seymour listens, rapt.

Golden beams. "There's just so much to show!"

Invitation to Hanoi

For two decades, through four administrations, Golden has led the Mural Arts Program (MAP), tending to its needs, fighting for its survival.

Her collection of awards includes the city's highest civic honor, the Philadelphia Award, and several honorary doctorates, the latest from Villanova in May. Her reputation only grows. The month before, the Ford Foundation invited her to consult on an ambitious mural project commemorating Hanoi's 1,000th anniversary.

But she balked at traveling to Vietnam, reluctant to leave her work in Philadelphia, the more than 40 ongoing projects and a waiting list of 1,000 communities and groups asking for murals.

For weeks, she told no one about the invitation and tried not to think about it.