Marlette is getting a mural, and the city picked the right building for it. The Michigan Agricultural Commodities facility on M-53 will be the canvas — a fitting location for a piece of public art that is specifically designed to reflect the agricultural roots and character of the Thumb area.
The city’s Downtown Development Authority handled the artist selection process and chose Kevin Burdick of Scrapes Designs for the project. Burdick will be responsible for bringing a design to life that captures something genuine about who Marlette is and where it came from — not a generic small-town image, but something rooted in the actual landscape and heritage of this corner of Michigan.
The mural is expected to be completed this summer.
Why This Project Matters
Public art in a small downtown does more than decorate a wall. Done well, it becomes a landmark — the kind of thing that gives a community a visual identity that photographs share, that visitors remember, and that residents feel proud of. A mural on M-53 is not tucked away somewhere. It sits on a main corridor where people pass through regularly, which means the piece will be seen consistently by the people who live and work in Marlette and by anyone driving through.
The decision to anchor the design in agriculture is the right call for a community like Marlette. The Thumb region’s identity is inseparable from farming — the flat fields, the grain elevators, the seasonal rhythms of planting and harvest that have shaped the area for generations. A mural that reflects that reality is not just decorative. It is a statement about what Marlette values and what it chooses to celebrate about itself.
Choosing the MAC facility on M-53 as the location adds another layer of meaning. This is not a blank wall on a vacant building — it is a working agricultural facility, and putting art that celebrates farming on the side of a building actively connected to the agricultural industry ties the visual statement directly to the real thing.
The Downtown Development Authority’s Role
The Downtown Development Authority’s involvement in selecting the artist and driving the project forward reflects exactly what DDAs are designed to do — invest in the vitality and appeal of a community’s commercial core in ways that attract people, support local businesses, and make the downtown worth coming to.
Marlette has been making deliberate investments in its future this spring across multiple fronts. The city recently applied for both state and federal infrastructure grants totaling more than $4.5 million for wastewater treatment plant upgrades and water and sewer improvements along M-53 — a parallel track of investment that addresses what is underground while the mural project improves what is visible above it. A community that is simultaneously fixing its pipes and painting its walls is a community that is serious about its own future.
Public art projects like this one have a track record of generating the kind of local pride and community conversation that sustains downtown revitalization efforts over time. When a mural goes up and looks exactly right — when it captures something true about a place — it becomes something the whole community feels connected to. That sense of shared identity and pride is harder to manufacture than a grant application, and it matters for the long-term health of a downtown in ways that are real even when they are difficult to quantify.
Kevin Burdick and Scrapes Designs will carry the weight of that expectation through the summer months. Based on the project’s intent — to celebrate Marlette’s agricultural roots and Thumb area character — the finished piece should feel like it belongs exactly where it is going, on the side of a building on M-53 in the heart of a community that has been farming this land for a very long time.
Across the Thumb region, communities have been finding different ways to invest in their public spaces and cultural identity this spring. The Tuscola Township veteran memorial project — funded in part by a $5,000 Tuscola County Community Foundation grant — is another example of a community deciding that the spaces people share deserve deliberate, meaningful investment. Both projects, different as they are, reflect the same underlying belief: that places worth living in are places where people take the time to make things beautiful and meaningful.
For those wanting to learn more about Kevin Burdick’s work and the Scrapes Designs portfolio, following up directly with the Marlette Downtown Development Authority or the city is the best starting point as the project develops through the summer. And for Michigan communities interested in how downtown development authorities fund public art and revitalization projects, the Michigan Economic Development Corporation’s downtown development resources provide guidance on programs and funding tools available to DDAs across the state.
