At a loss for what to do after hearing about the mass shooting in Las Vegas, artist Quin Sweetman turned to her art and her artist community to find a way to honor the lives of those who were lost. Together they started the Beautiful Lives Lost Portrait Project.
Visual Poem: Beautiful Lives Lost Portrait Project from Mary Anne Funk on Vimeo.
Quin and other artists who are a part of this project have created a portrait painting of the individual they chose to honor in their painting. The paintings are composites of several images that each artist found online of the person they are remembering through their painting.
Quin chose to paint Charleston Hartfield. He was a husband, father, an off-duty Las Vegas police officer and youth football coach in his community.
Mary Anne Funk is a terrific journalist. We are quite fortunate she has devoted her life to documenting underrepresented stories of real people and their challenges. I look forward to seeing more from her.