Less than 24 hours after their deaths in a helicopter crash, bigger-than-life images of basketball great Kobe Bryant and his 13-year-old athlete daughter Gianna smiled down from a colorful wall in the heart of Los Angeles.
As tributes popped up citywide, one stood out. It appeared overnight in the Los Angeles neighborhood known as Mid-City, reported KGO-TV.
White ribbons bearing the words “Kobe & Gigi Forever. Daddy’s Girl” adorn the cinderblock wall next to the cheek-to-cheek faces beaming down.
The Lakers star and his basketball-standout daughter, known as Gigi, were painted less than 24 hours after they perished along with seven others when the chopper they were traveling in smashed into a Calabasas hillside, according to KGO.
The mural was the brainchild of New York-trained Los Angeles artist Jules Muck, known on Instagram as Muckrock, who immediately “began receiving a wave of requests” to paint a public mural, the Los Angeles Daily News reported. She sent out an all-call for ideas on places she might paint on Sunday morning, the Los Angeles Daily News said.
As it happened, the first tip she got proved to be the perfect spot – a friend in Mid City saw a blank space on the side wall of a supermarket, the LA Daily News said. She got to work, and mere hours later – by 4 p.m. – the stunning double portrait had appeared, and it quickly became one of the many spots around town that mourners are turning into shrines.
“I was really upset while I was painting, fighting back tears especially the ‘Daddy’s Girl Banner,’ Muck told the Los Angeles Daily News on Monday. “It just meant a lot to me. My dad was ill and so their death just hit me, and I knew I definitely wanted to mention (Gigi).”
The group was flying from Orange County to Bryant’s Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks, KGO reported, where Gianna was scheduled to play with her basketball team that day.
Also killed were Orange County Coast College baseball coach John Altobelli, his wife, Keri and their daughter, Alyssa, as well as pilot Ara Zobayan, Mamba Academy assistant coach Christina Mauser and Gianna’s teammate Payton Chester along with her mother, Sarah Chester.
Bryant is survived by his wife Vanessa, and their three daughters, Natalia, Bianca and Capri, noted ABC News.
“What a sad day,” Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti told KTLA-TV Monday, after requesting that flags be flown at half-staff citywide. “It doesn’t feel like L.A. without Kobe in it.”
