This street artist is not someone I knew, or ever will know.  Because he was murdered in 2008.  I found out about his death when a blog I follow on chicagonow.com posted a note that his murderer had recently been found guilty.

But he’s someone I could have known.  He graduated from the Illinois Institute of Art, where I used to work.  I could easily have walked past his art on my way from the Blue Line to Union Station on one of my visits home to see family.

So even though I didn’t know him, I wanted to mention his art and his passing here.  Because really, he’s not that much different from a lot of the kids I did know on the Chicago streets.  Not a lot different from any of us.