Sol Anzorena rolls a shade of pink onto the side of Suffolk Street Eatery in downtown Ironwood.
It’s one of the many colors that make up the background of the mural she’s painting.
“In my mural, we are featuring the brook trout, that's what is in the center, but I also wanted to include some other creatures of the area who would share the environment with the brook trout such as the common loon,” said Anzorena, pointing out different parts of the mural that is still in progress. “We have crayfish, rainbow darter. I'm going to make some mussels, this is spotted salamander here.”
Originally from Argentina and now living in Wakefield, Anzorena is still learning a lot about the species she’s now painting.
“I see the common loons all the time because I live nearby the lake, Lake Superior. But I wasn't very familiar with all these underwater creatures. That was a very special thing for me,” said Anzorena.
To help design the mural, Anzorena worked with Jesse Phillips who works for the Ottawa National Forest.
“He came up with all these amazing ideas that improved my designs, because he knows way more about the area and the ecology of it. It was great to collaborate,” said Anzorena.
The same process and intention is being repeated on two other murals currently in progress in Ironwood.
Thiago Porraz and Evan Williams, both from Grand Rapids, Michigan, are working on a mural on the side of Bake Superior depicting white cedar.
Porraz worked with Lac Vieux Desert botanist Brian Hockaday and Lac Vieux Desert THPO Director Alina Shively on the artwork.
“My mural is depicting the white cedar, also known as giizhik, which is the Ojibwe word, and it's really trying to show the nature of the tree being very nurturing and providing,” said Porraz. “In indigenous culture, the white cedar is seen as kind of a grandmother character. It provides for a lot of different species, such as the white tailed deer and the pileated woodpecker.”
The third mural is on the storage garage of Hit Furniture which overlooks one of the main parking lots in town.
That’s where Eddie Chaffer and Spencer High are painting a mural focused on white pine and hemlock forests and the species that rely on them.
They worked with botany enthusiast Katherine Schneider who also works for the Ottawa National Forest.
“At the center, Eddie and I are making kind of a mask that we feel reflects the local forest. It's kind of like just the spirit of the Porcupine Mountains to us,” said High.
Chaffer and High are also from Grand Rapids and are involved with the Pleasant Peninsula Mural Festival that’s based there.
Chaffer is the founder and director.
“We essentially do a variety of different public art projects that further environmental education,” said Chaffer. “We pair up muralists or artists with scientific educators or conservationists or environmental activists, kind of across the board, and try to make work that makes science and conservation more accessible.”
The Pleasant Peninsula Mural Festival wrapped up its fourth year this summer. Nearly 30 murals have been painted across Grand Rapids over those years.
High and Chaffer say that the response to the festival has been overwhelmingly positive, especially those that work in conservation.
“When we had the festival in Grand Rapids, so many people came up to me and they were just overflowing with gratitude, because it showed that their work mattered, and that other people outside of science shared a similar love for a very weird, niche, rare species that we share our home with,” said High, who is also on the Pleasant Peninsula board.
A couple years ago, Chaffer stayed in Ironwood at a place owned by Cathy Flory.
When Flory learned about the Pleasant Peninsula Mural Festival, plans began to form to bring something similar to Ironwood.
“Wouldn't it be cool to do it up here on a smaller scale, that was more relevant to our area? That was how it all began and snowballed from there,” said Flory.
As chair of the Downtown Ironwood Development Authority, Flory started reaching out to people to make it happen.
Pleasant Peninsula coordinated the artists. The City of Ironwood and Downtown Development Authority financially backed it.
Protect the Porkies sponsored one of the murals. Other businesses, like Denver Air and Superior Getaways, donated travel and lodging.
“It's just really neat to see so many people care about getting something like this off the ground to make it happen with pretty little funding,” said Flory.
With the community coming together, the Downtown Ironwood Ecology Mural Festival was born.
“Getting to work with Cathy and hang out in our second Pleasant Peninsula has been just like a dream come true,” said Chaffer. “We hope to kind of take it around anywhere, and we think that it's a thing that could work in a lot of places, because everybody's really excited about their local ecology.”
For Flory, the murals are a chance to beautify the city she loves while honoring the reason many people choose to live in Ironwood.
“Who, especially in our area, doesn't love the outdoors and love the importance of the ecology. No matter where you fall on anything else, everybody cares about that,” said Flory. “It's a unifying topic that can also create art in some of the buildings downtown that could use a face lift anyway.”
For Chaffer, who is a full-time muralist, public art is all about accessibility.
“You don't need to pay any entrance fee or adhere to any dress code in order to appreciate a mural, you kind of just stumble upon it,” said Chaffer. “That format of just sort of happening upon it, I think, lends itself really well to what we do as well with environmental stuff. Where, in the same way that you'll kind of just be walking downtown and then you'll see a giant fish, you're like, ‘Wow, that popped out of nowhere,’ and that's kind of how you happen upon things in the natural world, too.”
All of the artists will finish the murals over the next couple of days, leaving behind a more colorful Ironwood and the hope that their work inspires more curiosity in the world around us.
“There's still so much to learn. I'm never going to know everything. I'm never going to meet all these species,” said High. “But by hopefully inspiring that within other people, it builds the community of people who are willing to fight for those things too.”
There will be plaques put up near the murals to explain a little about what people are seeing. There will also be information on the Pleasant Peninsula website.
As part of the festival, there’s been events tied to the murals all week in Ironwood. There are still some more events planned, including:
Friday, Sept 5th:
First Friday Festivities at Downtown Ironwood:
- 3-6pm: Complimentary Wine, tea & treats tasting @ Northwind Co-op.
- 4-7pm: First Friday Farmer's & Artisans Market @ City Square Tie Die making Fun with Fire N Dyes @ Farmer's Market $15 for all supplies and instructions, includes gloves. $10 BYO item to tie dye, includes all other supplies and instruction. **BYO items will need to be cotton. (Bamboo, viscose, elastine, linen, hemp) Price may increase depending on material. *Dye is permanent and the process is often messy, so wear something you don't mind getting stained." • Gloves will be provided.
- 5:30-7pm: Live Music @ City Square
Saturday, Sept 6th:
- 10am : Free Asahi @ the Pocket Park
- 1:30-3:30pm: Wood working class with Saint Mauds Wood working and intro Forest products. Gain knowledge about locally harvested wood and how this plays into our local ecology while woodworking. All ages welcome!
- 5-8pm: Educational speaker series- Artist & Educator talk about artwork and species
- Farmed and Foraged Food Tour: The Grand Finale event:
- A walking food tour of our three murals. Artists and educator partners will discuss the murals depicted and why the species represented are important to our area. Meet at Northwind Co-op at 5pm to join for the whole tour.
