Community Canvas: the Downtown TC Community Mural Unveiling on January 17, 2026!

Click to visit Project Partner Downtown Traverse City Association’s Event Page for up to the minute details. So many fun things to do!

How to explore the Unveiled Installation?
Start with the Map!

Want a printed copy? Peek at this map and find businesses marked with an * and then pick up a map, limited time only!

click to view
or download

Please participate, leave your trace, become part of the project.

Looking for the Survey?

click to participate

Perceptions: Six Word Memoir

Get a taste of the community data we’ve been collecting: a snapshot of perception and feeling.
Through brief reflections and playful six word memoirs, participants shared a peek into perceptions that made their paintings possible.

click to explore
perceptions

The research portion of the project has just begun, take a peek below.

Explore and come back often, more information is added weekly.
(To view a section notice the click to read, and click to close; it is a lot of information.
We’re working to organize with accessibility in mind)


Learn about the Downtown Community Mural. A Project history.

Click here to read: Click to close.


As the summer of 2025 slowed into August, Look Wonder Discover was invited by Crooked Tree Arts Center and Downtown Traverse City Association to design and facilitate an interactive community building mural for the Downtown Traverse City Art Fair.

Look Wonder Discover’s Design and Research team got right to work and developed Art of Emotion; Emotion of Art, an experience design rooted in research. It draws on principles of emotional expression and community well-being, inviting participants to explore how art and emotion interact. Following open science guidelines, the insights we gather will be shared publicly so others can learn from and build upon this work. By treating the mural as both artwork and research, we aim to show how creativity can spark dialogue, support mental health, and strengthen community bonds.

The mural project is more than art on a wall—it’s an exploration in connection, curiosity, and community. At each event, participants will take part in an experience that will guide them through curiosity, play, and expression. The process will lead participants into creating watercolor paintings that capture perception in the moment. These works will then be scanned and worked into the final mural design, which will be printed and installed on Front Street in Downtown Traverse City.

This lovely project is in process; the final design will emerge through the community’s participation. Come back to see what the mural looks like as it grows, and to explore the science, design, and stories behind the Art of Emotion; Emotion of Art.

The mural will unfold across events:


Downtown Art Fair:
September 13 (10am-6pm) & 14 (10am-4pm) 2025

Up North Pride Resource Fair:
September 27, 2025

Workshop at project partner Crooked Tree Art Center
Thursday, October 16, from 5:30–7:30 pm
Crooked Tree Art Center
322 Sixth St, Traverse City, MI 4968

We love working with CTAC, and for several years, Kristi Wodek has both understood and supported our mission, “[LWD has] a true design to know more, engage the community in a way that empowers the community while learning and growing… this isn’t something that just happens.” Join us in the lovely former Carnegie Library space at the art center!

There is limited space for this workshop, so please consider signing up, click here. More info about the workshop on the sign up form. And light refreshments will be served!

Mural Pop-up at Project Sponsor Oryana Community Co-op
Friday, November 21, from 4:30–7:30 pm at the Oryana West’s Community Room
3587 Marketplace Cir, Traverse City, MI 49684

“Oryana Community Co-op is looking forward to partnering with Look Wonder Discover to cultivate connection through creativity and community. We understand there is deep need for humans to meaningfully connect—and what better way to do that than through art!” explains Oryana’s community connector, Kirsten Harris.

Together, we’ll celebrate the connection between healthy food, healthy community, and the power of commons spaces to bring people together through curiosity and creativity. No sign-up is needed—just stop by anytime between 4:30 and 7:30 to create, connect, and add your voice to the mural.

A Community Building Project by Look Wonder Discover
For Art of Emotion; Emotion of Art, we chose to foreground Mary Gartside—a nearly forgotten watercolorist and theorist—over Goethe and other canonical figures in color theory. Her early 19th-century work, with its luminous hand-painted “color blots,” anticipated modern ideas about perception and emotion. We work to draw from information that is readily available in the Commons, bringing overlooked voices like Gartside’s forward to honor contributions long overshadowed, while weaving past and present together to imagine more resilient futures.

Images of Curiosity in Action. A Project Gallery

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The Downtown TC Art Fair 2025

Where the magic began: at the Downtown Art Fair on a perfect late summer weekend.
Each “curiosity box” contains a question, a surprise, an idea to seed your mind before painting.
Playing is so much a part of cultivating curiosity. And what better to play with than marbles?!
Do you spy a starry night? Perhaps Yayoi Kusama colors too? What else might you find in the “curiosity boxes”?
Surveys to explore the emotions participants feel before they start.
“Mirthy” the pencil monkey –they work to keep sharp pencils on hand at all times.
Creative prompts led participants through the painting process.
A table full of artists at work at the Downtown Art Fair 2025.
Working on connecting circles.
So many watercolor masterpieces, so many!!
Hard at work, patient and trusting. Such delight to watch the magic happen.
Filling the space with watercolor shapes, making the mural possible.
The process was full of intergenerational painters!
A table full of concentric circles.
Post-painting reflecting.
A finished painting, a connection. 
Relaxing and reflecting. Pillows and dappled shade in the “Curiosity Salon”.
Reflecting and exploring what participants felt post-painting. 
The painting in the late-summer sun.
Washing up and connecting. 

Look Wonder Discover (LWD) is a Gen Z–led 501c3 nonprofit rooted in Northern Michigan. Our mission is simple: to cultivate curiosity. Through interactive art, open education, and research shared in the commons, we design experiences that invite people to notice, reflect, and connect. Every project we create is guided by our belief that curiosity is a catalyst for more creative, connected, and resilient communities.