MetroABQ Blog

The Colossal Mile Hi Uptown Hummingbird

This expansive mural adorns an apartment complex in the Mile Hi District, a thin stretch of commercial neighborhood on either side of San Pedro, near Uptown. "Flutter" faces east, toward San Pedro Blvd, & the convergence of numerous bike routes--the Haines & Zimmerman Trails, & the San Pedro & Indian School bike paths, part of the Metro's over 400 miles of bike trails. A few neighborhoods converge here, too & across San Pedro sits the entrance to the Tom Bolock Urban Forest Park, a green ribbon that runs adjacent to I-40. It has a large dog park & connects, under Louisiana Blvd, to the 12-acre Jerry Cline Park. On the west side of Flutter is another city greenspace, the almost 4-acre Alvarado Park sits a few blocks west of the mural, & is home to the Alvarado Park/Mile Hi Farmers Market, beginning again this April.

Back to the hummingbird: it's a destination piece--massive, taking over most of a block. Flutter is painted on a concrete block wall, segmented into seven vertical sections, running the length of the building. With a few clicks, it was easy to find that Cloudface, the artist who created the mural, is nicely prolific. More can be found about him at Muros ABQ, a site documenting mural work in the MetroABQ--they also have a fantastic, ever-expanding map of mural locations throughout the city. Also, Mural Fest, in its third year, helps artists create many of the murals. Some images from previous Mural Fests can also be found here.