AP Wire | 05/21/2005 | Napa teen's castle mural triggers high school controversy over "religious" art: "NAPA, Calif. - A religious teen's mural of a castle in the clouds at a Napa high school triggered a battle to stop the painting by students who said it was too religious.
'It's not a religious thing. It's more of a spiritual thing,' insisted painter Kylie Trudelle, a Napa High School senior who totes a bible to school every day and is known as 'Pastor K.'
Students started a petition to stop Trudelle from completing his mural outside the high school art room. They argued that the mural's brick steps leading to a castle in the sky looked like heaven.
Trudelle insisted that the stairway could be leading to any pleasant place, even to Neverland.
The petition was dropped once Trudelle agreed to change the mural. Now, the stairs will lead to a sunspot in the sky, and the castle will be moored to the ground.
'I don't want to cause anyone to get upset,' Trudelle said.
Some students and school officials are asking why no one complained about an adjacent mural that includes an image of the Lady of Guadalupe, an important figure for many Catholic Latino students. The petitioners said that the image was one of many in a mural about Hispanic heritage, not a single ideal, as in Trudelle's painting.
The artist's mother, Laurie Trudelle, said she was surprised by the controversy.
'It's nothing more than a pathway to a nice, beautiful, glorious place that could be anything,' she said."