The fourth annual Noisy Waters Mural Festival has concluded in Bellingham with three artists selected to return in 2027 and create permanent large-scale murals in city neighborhoods. The festival, which drew more than 7,000 people to the Portal Container Village over the past weekend, announced its winners through community voting, with Denver-based muralist Catie Michel taking the grand prize for her depiction of a wolf surrounded by native plants and wildlife.
Michel's mural, which she titled "Sea to Salal," captured the community vote over a competitive field of artists who worked on their pieces publicly during the festival weekend. The open, observable painting process is central to how Noisy Waters builds community engagement: festival-goers do not simply view finished works but watch them take shape over hours and days, developing a personal connection to the pieces and to the artists creating them. Oak Bloak, also known as Max Coleman of Denver, took second place. Jessa Gilbert of Squamish, British Columbia, placed first in a separate judging category. Jason "Wayward Walls" Harvin of Gibsonton, Florida, claimed third place and a cash prize but no mural commission in Bellingham.
Where the New Murals Will Go
The three winning artists will return to Bellingham in the spring and summer of 2027 to paint permanent murals at specific sites that have already been identified. Two of the murals will be located in the Sehome neighborhood. Catie Michel's mural will go on the side of the Samish Station apartment complex, a prominent location along the Samish Way corridor that sees heavy vehicle and pedestrian traffic daily. Oak Bloak's mural will be painted on the new building of Bellingham Dental Group on Ellis Street in Sehome.
The third mural, by Jessa Gilbert, will be located along a bike path on Ohio Street in the Sunnyland neighborhood, a quieter residential area in east Bellingham that has seen growing interest from cyclists and pedestrians as the city's active transportation network has expanded. Placing a mural along a bike path rather than on a building visible from a street is a deliberate choice that rewards people traveling through the neighborhood at a human pace: cyclists and pedestrians will encounter the work at a speed that allows them to actually see it, rather than catching a glimpse from a moving vehicle. The exact designs for all three murals have not yet been finalized and will be developed in collaboration between the artists and the festival organizers ahead of the 2027 painting season.
For Bellingham residents who follow the city's evolving public art landscape, the three locations represent a meaningful geographic spread, reaching from the busy commercial corridor around Samish Way to the residential fabric of Sunnyland. Public art on bike paths, in particular, has become a significant element of how Bellingham's neighborhoods develop visual identity as cycling infrastructure improves. The Sunnyland placement on Ohio Street will give that neighborhood a distinct landmark that did not previously exist, creating a sense of place along a route that many cyclists already use as part of their daily commutes and recreational rides.
What the Artists Said
Michel, who won the top prize, reflected on what the festival meant to her beyond the competition result. "I feel like this festival is the salal and all of us are the bugs, getting goodness, joy, nourishment, humor and color," she said in a statement released by festival organizers. "This has been such a life-changing event for me. The interconnections here are really amazing and pretty endless. These artists are my idols and I can't believe we got to work alongside each other in such a beautiful place." The salal metaphor is fitting for a mural whose subject matter centers on Pacific Northwest native plants and wildlife: salal is one of the most characteristic understory plants of the coastal Pacific Northwest, thriving in the same temperate rainforest conditions that define the landscape around Bellingham.
The festival has built a reputation for creating genuine connections between visiting artists and the Bellingham community, a dynamic that goes beyond the physical products of the murals. Artists who come to Bellingham for Noisy Waters frequently describe the community engagement as unusually strong compared to other mural festivals they have participated in across North America. The combination of the public painting process, the community voting structure, and the permanent commission awarded to winners gives the festival a different character than events where artists install finished works without the participatory element that Noisy Waters has made central to its model.
About the Festival and Organizer
The Noisy Waters Mural Festival is organized by Paper Whale, the Bellingham-based arts organization that has developed the festival from its first edition into one of the Pacific Northwest's most distinctive public art events. Over four years, the festival has accumulated a growing portfolio of permanent murals in Bellingham neighborhoods, creating a distributed outdoor gallery that residents encounter as part of their daily movement through the city rather than by making a deliberate trip to a museum or gallery. The festival's model, which brings artists together to work publicly and invites community members to vote on winners who then receive permanent mural commissions, has proven effective at building both civic engagement and long-lasting public art infrastructure. Portal Container Village, where this year's festival was held, is itself a creative commercial space in Bellingham that aligns naturally with the festival's approach to using unconventional spaces for artistic programming.
Seeing the Festival Murals Now
Residents who missed the festival weekend or want to see all of the murals created during this year's event can still view them at the Whatcom Museum's Lightcatcher building, where the festival works are on display. The Lightcatcher, located at 250 Flora St. in downtown Bellingham, is one of the city's primary exhibition venues and regularly presents both local and visiting artists. Visiting the Lightcatcher display offers a different experience from seeing the murals at full scale outdoors, but it provides an opportunity to see all of this year's work together in one place before the winning pieces are translated into the large-scale permanent installations scheduled for 2027.
For more on Bellingham's arts scene and community events, earlier coverage is available in our local arts reporting. Additional information on the festival and the 2027 mural installations will be available through the festival's own communications as plans are finalized. The full schedule of Bellingham arts and community events is worth bookmarking for residents who want to track what is coming to the city's public spaces next year.
