One 10 year old says she has been blessed by God and there is one reason and one reason only to help others.

This month JC & Friends is presenting a special series of reports. We're featuring youngsters who march to a different drummer. They are outstanding, because of their talents. They have been called child prodigies. Today, we're featuring a 10-year-old artist, Akiane, whose work is on display in a local gallery.

She says she has been blessed by God... and there is one reason and one reason only to help others. Ten-year-old Akiane, as she is called, is an internationally recognized artistic prodigy. Her original paintings are sought after by collectors and are selling for up to 100,000 dollars. Part of the fee goes to charity. Right now, her works are on display at the Wentworth Gallery in Tysons Galleria. "I was at the age of four, I started having these visions and God told me to do art, to paint and later on to write poetry," Akiane said. Emory Miller learned that Akiane would visit the gallery and he rushed from his office to meet her. Miller said, "I found it fascinating that a young person could paint such a variety of work of all different types that individually are phenomenal pieces of art." She was born Akiane Kramarik to a Lithuanian mother and American father. She speaks Lithuanian, Russian and English, and has been home schooled, along with her three brothers by her mother; Forelli Kramarick, a former atheist. "When she was four, she started drawing these incredible drawings of angels and talking about heaven. That's when I knew there was something special about the situation," Forelli recalled. By the time she was six, Akaine was painting in acrylics and then oils. She favors large canvases - 48X60, and paints portraits, landscapes and animals in highly realistic detail. "It comes from always God. He gives me all these visions, images and I paint them," Akaine explained. "He gives me all these words and some words, I don't even know. Some words I have to look in the dictionary to find the meaning," she said. Beside each painting is a poetic explanation describing how the painting came to be.

"I wanted to present the allegory. Five groups of bears present differently to God. One bear whose holding a fish is selfish and wants to do only what he wants to do." Akiane says two bears just want to fight, another bear is angry with God and the mother and child, who are looking at God are the only bears with a reflection. "[She has] such an extraordinary level of dedication...and she gets up at four, four-thirty to paint. God told her to paint that early. And even just the way she works...not only what she paints, but how she approaches to that work is another mystery and its just interesting to observe that," Akiane's mother said. Akaine says, "Art changed my life."

Subsequently, in March of 2006, Akiane will begin a book tour around the U.S. It's title; "Akiane, Her Art, Her Poetry, Her Life."