GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look under an overpass.
On Front Avenue in downtown Grand Rapids, a short distance from the Blue Bridge and beneath a rumbling US-131, a collection of 21 artists are painting 21 threatened or endangered species native to Michigan.
The concrete canvas is home to the Pleasant Peninsula Mural Festival.
"Public art is a radically accessible medium," said Eddie Chaffer, founder and director of the festival, which recruited muralists from around the state and across the country and paired them with a scientist so they could learn about their assigned species.
These plants and animals include "celebrities" like the lake sturgeon and common loon, as well as lesser known species such as the pickerel frog.
For the full list of featured species, click here.
"You can stumble upon these [murals] and have your own experience with them," Chaffer said. "You can spend as much or as little time with them as you want."
On Wednesday, muralist Max Coleman worked away at a Kirtland's warbler, a conservation success story in Michigan.
"I've never been in a single area where every single person is committing their gifts toward helping something that needs help and cannot help itself," said Coleman, depicting the warbler with a halo as his way of "trying to reclaim the divinity of animals."
"Can't think of a more dedicated little bird," he said.
For the full list of festival muralists, click here.
Nearby, artist Taylor Berman spray painted diamond-shaped patterns onto his mural of a lake sturgeon, large and looking to the sky.
"Cool to have art and nature coming together," Berman said. "A bunch of people who appreciate both, hanging out for a whole week, doing our thing."
Berman and many others began their murals on Monday and plan to continue painting through the week.
From 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. on Saturday, July 26, the Pleasant Peninsula Mural Festival will offer free, family fun on 52 Front Avenue and down by the Blue Bridge. In addition to the reveal of the 21 murals, an art market, food trucks, live music, speakers and an animal meet and greet will also mark the day.
It's conservation in the center of the city.
"When you walk into an REI and you can't afford any of the tents in there and nobody looks like you, you're going to thing that nature's not for you," Chaffer said. "By bringing nature right here, it'll crack the door open for people to be like, 'I wonder what else is out there.'"
