7 new murals going up in Traverse City during weeklong festival

The lights in Nik Burkhart’s Maple City studio were dark while a projector hummed in the background. The projector threw an image of a bird’s nest onto a piece of paper tacked to the wall as Burkhart sketched on the projected lines.

"It's actually the first time I've seen it at this scale," said Burkhart. "So [I'm] kind of working through the design elements of it."

Burkhart's sixty foot mural will be going up at the Oryana Food Coop on Tenth Street — where he has just five days to finish it.

On a large roll of paper, Burkhart looked over the collaged images of a child’s hand holding a peach, cherry farmers harvesting with their neighbors and a spectacular home garden.

Part of what he wants to explore in his mural is a sense of a place. He does this not just by highlighting local foods, but by also showing the farmers and growers too.

"I wanted to find people within the community that are farming and growing the crops that we eat here," said Burkhart. "In this particular picture, there's five people just recognizing that growing food is oftentimes not a solitary thing. It takes a lot of people working together."

Burkhart said he’s excited that mural fest offers a look at how the art comes together.

"You can actually see these artworks coming to life, and you can see the beginning stages," said Burkhart. "You can come back for the middle, and you can then see it at the finished state. But there are a lot of interesting things that happen along the way."

Other artists will be popping up to paint the Box, Silver Spruce Brewing, Bay Family Vision & EB2 Vintage, The Copy Shop, and the Filling Station.

The festival will close on Wednesday, Sept. 17, with a parade down Eighth Street and beginning at Nik’s mural. Along the way, the parade will stop at each mural to hear from each artist about their latest work.

The parade will then end at the Filling Station with a happy hour.