At 8, she was a painting prodigy. At 14, she wants to be the next great artist.

''When Autumn de Forest was 5, she picked up a paintbrush for the first time.

It all started one day in her garage, she told me with the confidence and clarity of someone who, at only 14, has already done hundreds of interviews.

She says she borrowed a brush from her father, who was in the middle of staining some wood, and started messing around. She thought it was fun, but her father saw something bigger going on. There was something worldly in the way she moved the bristles.

So when Autumn said she wanted to keep it up, her parents were only too happy to encourage her. At 5, she quickly moved from practicing on scrap wood in the garage to experimenting on sprawling canvasses...''

by Evan Porter