For many homeschooled students, the challenge of combining life with education is diffi cult at times. But what if your talent is so unique, so extraordinary, that you are constantly brought to national media attention? How do you cope? How does your family cope? How does homeschooling fit in?

These are the daily challenges for Akiane Kramarik, the 10-yearold artist whose amazing creations have already earned her a place of prominence in the world of art. This self-taught child prodigy has already had solo art showings across the nation, and her original paintings fetch prices exceeding the $50,000 range. She has appeared in print publications from Time Magazine to the Weekly Reader and has appeared as a guest on Oprah, World News Tonight, and The Late, Late Show, as well as many others. In October, her artwork will be showcased at the Kids Hall of Fame. In addition, her biography, Akiane: Her Art, Her Poetry, Her Life, is due to be published next year. Not bad for a 10-year-old homeschooled student!

Akiane is unusual in more ways than one. After meeting her in two separate interviews, I found her to be warm, charming, intelligent, and every inch a child. Yet she is a child whose talent—and insight— is far above the norm. She deals with her growing celebrity status with a natural grace, taking it all in stride as a part of her artistic career. Her true desire is to paint and to write, to express the ideas that she feels are given her by God, and to share them with the world. For her, she says, art showings and interviews are just a way to get her message out to others.

Her message is one of hope, of love, of inspiration. Many of her paintings are realistic paintings of religious subjects; some are fantastic; some combine elements of the two in her own unique style. For every picture, she also creates a poem, often abstract in nature. Yet both her poems and her paintings reveal complex symbolisms rare in a lovely child of 10.

Sometimes, Akiane knows exactly what she is doing; but sometimes, she says, even she can’t fi gure out the symbols until later. And sometimes, the answers don’t come at all—she just paints the vision that she sees in her head or writes the words that flow from her. But, she explains, that doesn’t bother her, for then people can read their own meaning into the work. She likes that. She wants to make people think—especially about God.

Akiane speaks a lot about her visions— the inspirations for her paintings. But how exactly does she see these pictures? I ask her. Does she see them in dreams or when she is awake? Akiane thinks for a moment, trying to fi nd a way to explain a concept so personal. When she does explain, it is with her typical mix of childish phrasing and amazingly perceptive insights.

“I usually see the pictures when I am awake,” she explains. “If I see them in my dreams, or when I am sleepy, then they are in black and white and I can’t get the colors right. So usually it is like I am thinking of something and then there is a pause, like a commercial almost, and I see a black sheet and the picture is there on it. That is what I try to paint.”

Her mother looks at her curiously. “Is it is ever a white sheet? Is it always black?”

Akiane is decisive as she patiently explains the process to her adult listeners. “It has to be black, so I can see the colors right,” she says. “There has to be a contrast. White doesn’t give me enough contrast.”

However, the actual process of creating the image is not always easy. Sometimes it takes months to paint the image she sees—months of searching for the perfect model, the perfect brush, the perfect color. Sometimes, she says, she prays for God to send her the right model, and the model usually comes, though she often has to be far more patient than she would like. At other times, she has had to be creative with other elements, especially early on, when money for painting was tight. At one point, Akiane fashioned a brush from strands of her own hair in order to get the fine texture she wanted. Even when the elements are in place, the paintings normally require many revisions before she achieves the effect she wants. Often, as she paints, Akiane’s artistic vision changes slightly as imagination comes more into play and the picture she produces differs somewhat from the one she originally envisioned.

For such an extraordinarily creative child, homeschooling seems to be the perfect fit. It was Akiane who first broached the idea of homeschooling with her family. Her mother, though not opposed to the concept of homeschooling, was, at first, frightened by it.

“I knew it was a good idea, but I was not sure I could do it. We tried to have a school at home, much like a regular school, but that did not work for us,” Foreli, Akiane’s mother, explained.

Frustrated, Foreli tried both public and private schools for Akiane and her two older children. For awhile, Akiane herself wanted to try school so that she could spend more time with her friends. However, she soon decided that this option did not work for her and begged to come home.

“The time in school was her least productive,” Foreli explained. “She was always so tired, so drained from the school experience, that she could not create the way she wanted to.” Since then, Akiane has come home to learn and has never looked back.

For Akiane, a typical day begins at 4 or 5 AM. She exercises, prays, reads her Bible, and then paints or composes her poems for several hours while her ideas and energies are at their peak. After breakfast, she begins her schoolwork, which often focuses on the painting task at hand. If she is painting a deer, for instance, she studies deer—how they look and move and live. She visits zoos or animal preserves to view them on her own. She likes math and science but doesn’t study them every day. Many days, she returns to her paintings, which she creates on huge canvases often larger than she is.

Language is also a big part of her life. Though she is fl uent in English, her family speaks Lithuanian (her mother’s native tongue) at home. In addition, the family is learning Russian. Akiane is also proficient in sign language.

Her mother, Foreli, says that she does not really practice home education as much as self-education. Her older sons are very involved in their own educational process, often seeking materials and curriculum on their own with Foreli’s guidance. Foreli wants them to pursue their passions and study in ways to prepare them for future careers that they desire. “I think it is good for them to have to seek knowledge,” she explained. “I want them to crave it like bread.”

For Foreli, this is a natural concept. She grew up in Communist-controlled Lithuania. At the age of 13, she was hit by a dump truck and injured so badly that it was thought that she would die. For two years, most of her life was spent in hospitals and sanatoriums, and all formal education ceased. However, Foreli used this time of slow recovery to read voraciously and to study on her own. By the time she was 17, she passed the state test to receive her teaching credentials and began to teach others.

At the age of 19, she and her sister paid a “ransom,” or bribe, to officials to allow them to leave and come to America. Once here, she and her sister had to work tirelessly to pay back the money borrowed for the ransom. It was here that she met and married her husband and began her family. It was impossible, in those early days, to envision that a former atheist from such beginnings would one day produce a child who wanted to paint pictures of Christ and heaven. Even now, Foreli is amazed, and a little confused, by the course her life has taken. Yet she revels in her daughter’s talent and speaks proudly of her three sons and their abilities and ambitions. Now, she spends much of her own time acting as Akiane’s agent—answering e-mails, arranging details for interviews, and going with her to art showings.

Homeschooling allows them the freedom to do all this, Foreli says. It allows Akiane’s art to fl ourish and gives them the opportunity to pursue the media opportunities that open up to them. For Akiane, the reasons she enjoys homeschooling are more personal: she loves to spend time with her family, especially her little brother.

Akiane’s future is uncertain, but it is bright. After years of focusing on her own natural techniques, she has just now started to want to learn more about how others paint through observation of their art. However, she still has no desire for formal artistic training. Her mother laughs as she says, “People ask her all the time if she wants to go grow up and go to college and study art.”

“What about it?” I ask, as I note the mischievous grin on Akiane’s face.

“I don’t really want to study art in college,” she says. “But I would love to someday teach there.”

All artwork in this article is copyrighted by Akiane Kramarik and used by permission. For more information go to www.artakiane.com.

Amelia Harper is a homeschooling mother of five and pastor's wife. She is the author of Literary Lessons from the Lord of the Rings, a complete one-year literature curriculum for secondary level students. She is also a freelance writer for newspapers and magazines. www.HomeScholarBooks.com www.HomeschoolBlogger.com/MiddleEarthMom