Craig Cundiff (website, Instagram)
Location: 2018 1st Avenue
Artist Statement 
(click to listen to the description)
This is where the artist statement is written
More information (click to listen to the description)
On the morning of June 9, 2023, before her No. 10 banner was raised into the rafters of Climate Pledge Arena, the Seattle Storm did something fitting for a player of Sue Bird’s magnitude: they gave her a wall.
Located at 2030 First Avenue in Belltown, the mural was unveiled as part of a full weekend of celebrations honoring Bird’s career, painted by local Seattle artist Craig Cundiff. It captures Bird across her decades of commitment to the Storm and its fans, with a special nod to the four championships she brought back to Seattle.
The subject deserves every inch of it. Bird won four WNBA championships with the Storm in 2004, 2010, 2018, and 2020 — becoming the first player in WNBA history to win a championship in three different decades — alongside five Olympic gold medals, two NCAA championships, and a record 13 All-Star appearances across 21 seasons. She retired as the WNBA’s all-time leader in assists and is widely considered the greatest point guard in women’s basketball history.
For Seattle, which lost its NBA franchise the SuperSonics in 2008 and saw other sports stars move on in search of titles, Bird remained a constant — and became arguably the city’s greatest athlete. She never left. She never had to.
Craig Cundiff is one of Belltown’s most active muralists, also known for his work with the Belltown Mural Festival and a piece inspired by The Boys in the Boat at Hotel Sorrento. His portrait of Bird on First Avenue stands as both a tribute to an extraordinary career and a permanent piece of the neighborhood’s visual identity — a reminder, for anyone who walks past, of what it looked like when loyalty and greatness spent twenty-one years in the same place.
Back to the Belltown Murals: map, overview web page