Golden Crowned Kinglets mural | grand Rapids, MI 2025
The golden crowned kinglet is a very tiny, very fast, very pretty, and very resilient little bird. To me it made sense to depict this winter hardy and hyperactive little guy in my mural in downtown Grand Rapids—the town that keeps on growing, moving forward, becoming more beautiful and more resilient.
Also, I thought it was funny to paint a bird that weighs about 6 skittles as about 9-10 feet tall. They’re tiny, but now also giant and fly north against a background of technicolor white pine branches. This freehand mural along Division Ave (right by the Civic Theatre) is about 130’ long, 11’ish tall, and took me around 110 hours to complete! My biggest single wall to date, thank you to the city of Grand Rapids and the fine folks of the Fitzgerald building for hearing me out on this vision of birds and branches. I hope more people know to keep an eye out for the kinglets now, to examine the white pine and look high in the tops of the pines. They’re wonderful little guys!
Big thank you to @shafi.subhan for the gorgeous photos.
Plants & Birds portrayed: Eastern White Pine, Golden Crowned Kinglets
