Portrait of Mckenzie Elliot (2011-2014), oil on canvas 11X14, painted 2014. The three year old stands in a flower garden, trellis with her name and dates behind her. Her braids are held together with colored beads. Her dress is bright green decorated with butterflies. She wears bright red buckle shoes. A deep blue sash is tied around her waist. She holds a baby rabbit in her arms as she gazes straight at the viewer. The mother rabbit perches beside her, watchful, ready to defend. McKenzie Elliot was born in the Asian year of the Rabbit, hence the symbol.

Such was the case with Mackenzie Elliot. She was three years old in 2014, just finding out the excitement in being able to form complex thought into speech. The whole block loved her bright eyes and happy ways.

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There's nothing like the laughter of small children. Joyous, gurgling with pure glee, before the struggles of growing up take place. Over years, the pure mirth vanishes. Or it could stop suddenly.

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The breakthrough is that I begin to somehow detach from my own identity enough to allow the subject themselves to "communicate " who they were freely. I become a true messenger in paint. I owe Truc Thi Ly Nguyen a great debt for this.

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Her name was Truc Thi Ly Nyugen (1971-2014). She is the 40th Marcher to join the crusade. She worked every at a salon as a manicurist in East Baltimore. She and her fiance arrived in America with hopes of working hard for a house of their own, so they could marry.

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This next Marcher represents a portrait that gave me a breakthrough in ability. Her story brought out a hidden depth in me. She will appear again in my next category.

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If you go on YouTube, search Lor' Deshaun, or the rap "Bodie 'Em", on the channel Big G Filmz, you will see Deshaun Jones starting his dream. A fragment of work from a fragment of a life.

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To this day, I've not seen any news that anyone was brought in for Deshaun's murder. As the 22nd Marcher, Deshaun brought two challenges. The first is to use dramatic shadowing to bring out the uniqueness of the subject.

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They were attacked by a man hired for the job by a woman who harbored jealousy toward one the thought was a love rival. It wasn't Gennie. She was not the intended target. Both man and woman are in prison.

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After losing his son and spending months in recovery, one wonders if Rashad ever considered doing some things differently. The answer is no. Four years later, Rashad was killed in a similar ambush. I have no photo of Rashad, thus I'm unable to paint him too.

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Despite bystanders doing their best to help until emergency vehicles arrived, Carter's little soft body was no match for a semi automatic weapon. He never made it to the hospital.

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