Shane Grammer’s glowing mural story

Earlier this year, Shane Grammer felt compelled to paint a portrait of Kobe Bryant after the NBA legend died in a helicopter crash. He didn’t know it would be just one of the memorial murals he’d make this year.

“When Kobe died with his daughter, I was broken over it,”  says Grammer, a 48-year-old from Chico, California. “I have three girls and I take my girls on projects with me all the time and we paint together.”

In June, Grammer returned to the wall in Los Angeles where he’d painted a side view of Bryant to add a mural of another father who died, George Floyd.

The image of Floyd is different from any Grammer has made. At the last minute, he decided to give the portrait a golden glow.

“I just felt, because of the way our country is feeling and responding to what happened to him, it’s almost like he is sanctified, if that makes sense,” he says. “My mural was showcased in George Floyd’s funeral video in Houston and I had no idea. I had friends telling me that happened, and I could have chosen to not do it. You know?”

As Grammer sees it, the inclusion of his art in the video was evidence that as an artist, he should listen to his instincts to go out and paint.