Celebrating the culmination of a multi-year art experiment, Heritage Hotels threw open the doors on June 28th to 24 Native artist designed guest rooms at Nativo Lodge in Albuquerque for public viewing. In the past month, hotel visitors have had the pleasure to stay in any one of the rooms decorated with hotel walls beautified with Native designs.

Cloudface (Diné/Hopi), whose room is entitled “Arrival/Departure,” decorated it with oversized hummingbirds. “Hummingbirds are so small,” he explained to ICMN, “I just wanted to zoom in to have their brief visits last a little longer.”

Cloudface says his art addresses “the impermanence of life,” as his composition was also an homage to the memory of his older brother, also an artist, whose last paintings depicted hummingbirds.

“I owe everything to him,” Cloudface said. “He was the only person I’ve ever considered a real teacher. I followed his lead, he gave me so much—taught me how to draw, how to paint in more traditional ways. It’s not all about loss,” he said. “It’s about offering all you can, while you can.”

Lynnette Haozous, who is a grandniece of legendary sculptor Allan Houser and is Chiricahua Apache (of the San Carlos Apache Tribe), Diné and Taos Pueblo, said she wants the guests who choose to stay in her “Sunrise Blessings” room—on which the east wall has an image from her Apache tradition of White Painted Woman—to find a peaceful place of respite from everyday cares.

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