Mural Fest '18: Huning Highlands/EDo (East Downtown)
Mural Fest 2018 is an annual Public Art festival featuring new murals found across the city, mostly in the UrbanABQ east & west neighborhoods. The freshly-painted murals can subtly engulf small doorways--see the Guild Cinema image--or boldly span the length of an entire block. I found most of them while the festival ran over the two weeks this fall. Luckily many of the outdoor exhibits will remain for a while; however, some may be gone soon. See them before the wall owners or the elements change them forever. The artist for each piece was not always readily known, so a full list of the artists is found here...
The two images above are from Huning Highlands/EDo, just East of Downtown along Central Ave. The artichoke mural resides on an outside wall of the iconic Artichoke Cafe & the large wall-length piece--sitting two blocks west of I-25 on Central--was fun to watch the progress as I passed by...using electric scaffolding, it slowly took form over many days & was almost complete the last week of the festival.
The Neighborhoods: Huning Highlands sits on both sides of Central Ave. It was the 1st MetroABQ 'suburb,' 120+ years ago, & today is known for it's often pristine turn-of-the-century Victorian residences.
"This year's theme When Nature Calls brings focus to Planet Earths climate crisis and how it is affecting all life on this floating rock we call home. From California being on fire to Houston, Puerto Rico & Hawaii drowning in water and lava to New Mexico facing one of the worst droughts in history - we felt a need to bring our world community together through murals, music and culinary arts to highlight solutions we can all play a part in moving forward.
Mural Fest is a catalyst in the development of a more unified, safer, beautiful city."
I noticed a few similarities of element in some of the pieces, which seems to correspond well with this years theme: nature is present in most of the murals, especially cholla & prickly pear cactus, found on several pieces; also, hummingbirds & roadrunners can be found regularly, too.
Along with the murals, throughout the three weeks, the festival also featured block parties, art exhibits, music & culinary events. Over 100 sponsors contributed toward the success of the annual event. The map of murals can be found here.