In a tiny California town ravaged by fire, a muralist finds a calling — and notoriety
PARADISE, Calif. - Nicole Weddig felt a strange sense of calm as she stood in the driveway, her gaze fixed on the wall.
She did not expect to ever again find peace in this town, where all that was left of her home was ash, rubble and rusted metal, the front steps that lead to nowhere, and the patchwork of singed stone.
Yet it was comforting to see her daughter's portrait rendered delicately on the wall, her little profile squinting up into the trees, wisps of fine hair floating away from her face as if with the wind.
Eleanor had refused to set foot in Paradise in the weeks after the fire. "I don't want to see one burned building," the 9-year-old told her mom and dad. So Nicole had visited just twice: first to see if any belongings had survived the flames, and now, in late January, to see the mural.
Nicole had offered the wall to an old friend from Chico High School, a commercial artist named Shane Grammer, after he'd posted on Facebook the week before:
Looking to paint a few more murals in Paradise, he wrote. Anyone have a canvas?
Shane had grown up 15 miles southwest of Paradise in Chico, and could easily count two dozen friends who'd lost everything in the November fire. One of them,
