I became familiar with Akiane's painting, the Prince of Peace, through a friend of mine who
purchased a DVD for me out of the blue. It was all about Akiane Kramarik, her amazing story,
and her spiritually inspired art.
I learned that Akiane had grown up in an atheist family. Her mother came to
the US at age 16 from Lithuania. She met Akiane's father who was a chef in Chicago, and they were married. Akiane's
father who had been raised Catholic had turned to atheism. God and Jesus, were not words that
were ever mentioned in their home.
At age 4, Akiane began having vivid visions of heaven, Jesus, angels, and God. At one
point, after she had gone missing for several hours, Akiane suddenly reappeared amongst the
people who were searching for her - with her explanation being only that she had been to heaven and saw Jesus.
Being atheist, her parents were initially horrified by what their daughter was describing. They
eventually came to realize that what Akiane was experiencing was actually very, very real to her. She
was articulating things that she saw in Heaven over the days and the weeks and months
that preceded that event. Eventually, the family all became believers in Jesus.
Akiane was raised in a home where her creativity was nurtured in a huge way, however after her experience with Jesus she became very passionate about drawing and painting. She would paint with foods, pencils and with her fingers all over everything.
At age 6, she began searching for someone in this world that looked similar to who she saw as Jesus in her visions. Her family prayed about it off and on for two years. Her parents would even take her to shopping malls so she could search the faces. She could find no one who fit her vision.
After organizing an entire day of prayer about finding a likeness of Jesus, a man came to her door who was over 6 foot tall, whose profession was a carpenter, and said that he understood that she was looking for a model for her Jesus portrait and that he would be happy to act as a model for her. The timing was perfect because he had only 3 days before he had to shave his beard and go back to his regular work.
Akiane sketched and took pictures of the man and she began her painting and although this was one of her first oil paintings, it took her only 40 hours to complete it (in her autobiography, there is a photo time lapse of her completing the painting at different phases). She entitled the painting 'Prince of
Peace'. |