By: Dean Vaglia | Mount Clemens-Clinton-Harrison Journal | Published January 23, 2026
MOUNT CLEMENS — When driving into Mount Clemens from the south, the first thing visitors are greeted by is the oxidizing “Bonior Tree.” Soon later they will find horses galloping around Shadyside Park, a garden of butterflies and hexagonal bookshelves, a giant red flower-shaped windmill and much more the further north one goes.
Is Mount Clemens some place of whimsy and wonder, where nature and development blend in harmony? Not quite, despite the sights along Northbound Gratiot Avenue, but it might sometimes seem that way all thanks to the Macomb Cultural and Economic Partnership’s sculpture initiative.
Free and open to the public, the sculpture initiative has been running for eight year-long seasons since 2018. What originally began as a collection of eight sculptures has grown to over 50 running from the border with Clinton Township up to downtown Mount Clemens and even a few beyond.
The MCEP owns and commissions a number of the sculptures along Gratiot corridor, such as those that make up its Pollinator Park, though it is through the work of donors and sponsors that the program has been able to grow. Some sponsors provide space for placing the sculptures, while others help the MCEP rent sculptures through the Midwest Sculpture Initiative.
“(The MSI) is a collection of sculptors who you choose (sculptures) from,” MCEP Secretary and Treasurer Ed Bruley said. “They are cataloged and can rent (sculptures) for a one-year period to show off in your community.”
The sheer number of sculptures along Gratiot this year allows for the initiative to better highlight itself as a “sculpture trail,” a path around the city that gives people interesting goals to walk, ride and talk around.
“What we’ve tried to do is create density,” Bruley said. “People don’t want to walk, which, for health reasons, we want to encourage people to walk. But you need to have goals in your walking, and I think now … the trail gives you enough density to be able to go out in an afternoon and really engage with a lot of the sculptures in a close proximity to each other. On Main Street, for example, it’s a wonderful street to walk and there’s enough sculptures close to each other that I think you’ll be intrigued to go see the different kinds done by different people with different themes.”
Alongside the trail itself, a lynchpin of the initiative is the Pollinator Park located at 17 Gratiot Avenue, hugging the northbound section between Inches and Kibbie streets. This 2024 addition to the project features several pollinator-shaped sculptures from Battle Creek-based metal artist Kyle Burnett, three concrete planters 3D-printed by Citizen Robotics of Detroit and a honeycomb-shaped library sculpture by Detroit-based artists and brothers Israel and Erik Nordin. The Nordin sculpture (one of two projects of theirs on the trail) has a rotating selection of books and operates similarly to a Little Free Library. Native plants grow in the park seasonally.
As the sculpture initiative grows, it has begun to move further south into Clinton Township. The 2025-26 season is bookended by the Bonior Tree and Jonathan Bowling’s “Golf Birds” (both along Welling Crescent at its northbound and southbound Gratiot intersections, respectively), though efforts are being made to move the project into the neighboring community.
“We are looking for people who will sponsor a site to put a sculpture on or to actually sponsor a sculpture,” MCEP President and Clinton Township Trustee Julie Matuzak said. “That involves going business to business, door to door down the Gratiot corridor to try to find places willing to host a sculpture or willing to contribute financially to have a sculpture. We would like to do more of that, but it’s a matter of finding folks willing to participate … It’s slower-going. Some businesses don’t want a sculpture in front of their place. They think it’s somehow distracting. For the last couple of years, we’ve been trying to expand into Clinton Township.”
Ultimately the MCEP’s goal with the sculpture project is to reconnect and build community in an area that has been divided by Gratiot Avenue.
“We are trying to weave together neighborhoods,” Bruley said. “North and Southbound Gratiot was part of the 1960s ‘urban renewal,’ which I think separated us. It made fast-going streets that separated people rather than bring people together. We’ve tried to take an area of separation and tried to make it an area of coming together. We want to bring neighborhoods, businesses and community more together. Give them a point to meet, to talk, to have an opinion, a way of commonality. We want to increase connectivity. It’s bringing art (and) nature to connect us better as a community.”
With the sculpture project receiving no government funding outside of a few sculptures directly sponsored by the Clinton Township and Mount Clemens downtown development authorities, funding relies on the generosity of sponsors and a series of take-out meal fundraisers. The next such fundraiser will be with Louie’s Ham & Corned Beef in Mount Clemens on Saturday, March 14.
“We do this because we love to build up the community,” Matuzak said. “We think there’s a real economic development portion of this. We’d love to have Mount Clemens and Clinton Township become known for its art.”
For more information about the sculpture walk or for fundraising and volunteering opportunities, call (586) 783-6008 or email mcep99@gmail.com.