Five new murals are going up on downtown Ironwood buildings through this weekend, more than doubling the public art collection a local festival started last year.

The second annual Downtown Ironwood Ecology Mural Festival holds its main public event Saturday, Sept. 5, with artists painting large-scale, permanent works on old buildings across the city's commercial core. Each mural depicts a different aspect of Upper Peninsula ecology, WLUC first reported. Painting began Monday, Aug. 31, and continues through Sunday, Sept. 6, according to the city's festival page.

Last year's inaugural festival produced three murals. This year, the total rises to eight.

"We had an open call for artists this year and received 27 applications from all over the country, so it was a very difficult process to narrow it down," said Cathy Flory, chairwoman of the Downtown Ironwood Development Authority.

The authority organized the festival alongside Travel Ironwood, the city's tourism council, and community partners. Flory said the idea grew from a desire to bring vibrancy to old downtown buildings while offering free art to the community.

Among the five artists chosen is Taylor Berman, who traveled from western Wisconsin to paint a black bear mural on the Michigan Works Building. Other participating muralists include Brian Wentworth, painting a Lake Superior scene at Rigoni's Bakery; Natalie Shugailo, painting a river otter at Hitt's Fine Furniture Garage; Chelsea Monaghan, painting a forest scene at the O'Dea Law Firm; and Sol Anzorena, the festival's "Waterfall Artist," painting at Suffolk Street Eatery.

The 2025 festival, held in partnership with the Pleasant Peninsula Mural Festival out of Grand Rapids, focused each mural on a different species important to the Upper Peninsula. Organizers paired each muralist with an environmental educator, drawing on tribal members, Ottawa National Forest staff, DNR personnel and Michigan State University researchers.

This year's murals mix individual species, like the black bear and river otter, with broader U.P. landscape scenes such as Lake Superior and a forest waterfall.

The festival's main public event is a Local and Foraged Food Tasting Tour and Mural Talk on Saturday, Sept. 5, from 5 to 6:30 p.m. The Northwind Natural Foods Co-op and the muralists are hosting the event, which features a four-course tasting of locally sourced and foraged ingredients followed by a walking tour of each mural. Tickets are $25 per person, with advance registration encouraged by emailing [email protected]; the artist conversations portion of the tour is free to join. More details are available at travelironwood.com.