Following positive responses from both artists and the public to several recent local mural projects, the Traverse City Arts Commission (TCAC) is planning to bring a new weeklong mural festival to the city in September 2025. At least five artists are expected to participate in the inaugural Traverse City Mural Festival creating outdoor murals at locations throughout the North Boardman Lake District/Eighth Street corridor, with the public able to watch the murals painted live throughout the week and participate in arts-related events and programming.

Traverse City Downtown Development Authority Executive Director Harry Burkholder – the city staff liaison for TCAC – says the organization first “dipped its toes” into the world of mural art with two recent projects. The first was the Union Mural Project, which saw two new murals installed on the south side of the AT&T building and two more on the side of the Dish Café building (now Identity Brewing Company) on Union Street in 2021. More recently, TCAC held a ribbon cutting last month in partnership with the Traverse City Parks and Recreation Commission to unveil a new mural on the restroom building at Bryant Park. In both projects, the mural artists were selected by TCAC through a public request-for-proposals (RFP) process.

Those public calls for art made TCAC realize “there’s a lot of interest out there for murals,” says Burkholder. “We had over 30 people submit proposals for Bryant Park. Building on the momentum of those projects, the idea to do a mural festival somewhere in Traverse City percolated.” TCAC started zeroing in on the North Boardman Lake District as a potential location for the inaugural event, as the commission was already in discussions with TART Trails and other corridor partners about using public art to bring more visual interest and placemaking engagement to the Eighth Street and Boardman Lake Trail areas.

After securing a handful of funding committments – including $12,000 from the Michigan Arts and Culture Council, $10,000 from TART Trails, and at least $30,000 from the TCAC itself – the commission is ready to move forward with the first Traverse City Mural Festival, tentatively scheduled for September 12-19, 2025. Traverse City commissioners agreed this week to lend their support to TCAC’s grant application to the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians for another $15,000 grant as a part of the Band’s two percent allocation program. Burkholder says TCAC hopes to partner with the Band to highlight an Indigenous artist as part of the festival. If the grant application is successful, TCAC will be more than halfway to its $122,500 festival budget, with the rest potentially to come through other grants, donations, crowdfunding, and/or in-kind gifts, Burkholder says.

Next steps will include locking in the specific mural locations in the North Boardman Lake District, which could be a combination of private and public properties. “We’re looking at a minimum of five murals and soliciting agreements with property owners along the corridor,” says Burkholder. The idea is that artists will paint the murals live throughout the weeklong festival, giving the public an opportunity to see the works in progress, with TCAC also hoping to host other arts-related programming and events during the festival to encourage more community engagement around public art.

The murals are intended to remain in place after the festival, with an anti-graffiti lacquer applied – as has been the case with other TCAC mural installations. TCAC members met this week to finetune an RFP for mural artists, which is expected to be issued publicly in December. Because of the holidays, TCAC will accept artist proposals through February, Burkholder says. The initial application will ask for artist qualifications and examples of previous work, with TCAC then narrowing those applications down to a group of finalists – possibly 10-12 in the first cut, Burkholder says – from whom more specific mural proposals will be requested. TCAC will consider applications from artists nationwide but give first preference to Michigan artists, Burkholder says. As with other TCAC projects, artists will be compensated for their time and work if selected for the festival, according to Burkholder.

If successful, the Traverse City Mural Festival could become a recurring event – potentially moving around to different locations. “Maybe it wouldn’t be every year, but could be every couple of years,” Burkholder says. “I think there’s a large appetite for murals in this community, and we could do different focal points in the city.” He says the goal of the inaugural event is to continue TCAC’s mission of “drawing attention to public art in Traverse City” as well as bring positive energy to the North Boardman Lake District.

“The road improvements that were done a few years ago in the Eighth Street corridor made great strides in giving a sense of place, and public art along the corridor would be another improvement,” Burkholder says. “It’s a placemaking project as much as it is an art project.”

Pictured: Mural art by artists Natasha May Platt and Miriam Castillo being installed on Union Street in 2021. Photo credit: Traverse City Arts Commission.