News File Photo Bay City artist Mark Piotrowski painted this mural in July 2020 on the side of Salon 125 at 125 E. Chisholm St. in Alpena. The mural, called “Wave Journey,” was the second installment in the Fresh Waves project, a public arts initiative to bring new, vibrant artwork to the downtown district.

ALPENA — Artist applications are now open for the Alpena Downtown Development Authority’s third Fresh Waves mural project. Applications are due my midnight on May 25.

This is the third year the DDA has facilitated the public art initiative. Fresh Waves started in 2019 when Alpena native Aaron Goldbeck brought the idea for a mural project to the Alpena DDA’s Promotions and Marketing Committee. Golbeck and Chad Bolsinger painted the first mural that summer on the side of Family Enterprise at 211 S. 2nd Ave.

In 2020, two more murals were painted. The first mural of 2020, titled “Wave Journey” was painted by Mark Piotrowski of MARKed ARTs, out of Bay City, on the side of Salon 125, at 125 E. Chisholm St. “Together Again” is the second mural painted in 2020 by North Carolina-based artist Britt Flood on the side of Thunder Bay Theatre’s warehouse at 400 N. 2nd Ave.

The purpose of Fresh Waves is to celebrate art as art, for art’s sake. Fresh Waves is meant to honor creative freedom and bring fresh, new fine art to the downtown landscape –art that exists for its own purpose, to make you feel something, to make you ask questions. There is no “theme” that drives Fresh Waves, but instead a mission to bring beautiful, one-of-a-kind artwork by professional artists to the downtown.

In 2021, the Alpena DDA is changing up the location of the project. This year, the Fresh Waves murals will be painted on free-standing structures at the entrance to the City of Alpena Boat Harbor, pending official approval from the city.

The structures will be 4 feet wide and 8 feet tall and will feature two panels affixed to posts sunk into the grass. Four to eight structures will be erected in the grassy stretch between the sidewalk and harbor parking lot on Prentiss Street.

“When we started talking about Fresh Waves again at the start of this year, I started thinking about two main things,” said Kingsli Kraft, Alpena DDA marketing and outreach coordinator. “The first thing was how we could use this project as a tool to bring a little color and beauty — and hopefully foot traffic — to specific areas of our downtown district that are in need of a little revitalizing. The second was how we could adapt Fresh Waves to increase the number of artists participating and make the project more accessible to more artists.

“Fresh Waves is one of my favorite projects that we get to work on,” Kraft continued. “The arts have so much power to transform physical spaces and inspire community pride and investment. The committee has had numerous conversations about how we can be the most intentional and impactful with this project. We thought a lot about how we can use this project to have the greatest impact on a specific area of our district that could use beautification, and also how we could use this project to elevate the voices of and give opportunities to extremely talented artists and create another iconic Alpena landmark.”

Artists interested in applying can find the application on the DDA’s website, at www.downtownalpenami.com/fresh-waves-mural-project. In addition to filling out the application, artists must provide their resume, up to four potential concepts for the mural they would like to create in 4×8 ratio, and at least one reference from a past commission, if they have completed mural art for a client in the past. Past mural painting experience is preferred, but not required.

For more information about the Fresh Waves mural project, please contact Kraft via email at kingslik@alpena.mi.us or call 989-356-6422.