Uncle Joe

I once had an uncle who people effectionatelly call as Joe Boy. Joe Boy was a professional artist.
He made a living painting cinema posters on billboard advertisements just after the second world war days in my country. Uncle Joe also had a passion for writing. He devoted his spare time writing mitigation letters to courts to help the needy who could not afford expensive legal fees. Joe Boy had the love for music as well and his pet instrument was the flute. Among other things that he played were the precussion and harmonica. I have never met Uncle Joe in my life but my mother had always said that sometimes when she sees my artworks, she can see a little of Uncle Joe in me.
During the ending of 1976 Uncle Joe had passed away at the early age of 37 after going through a spell of depression bout. He never had a girlfriend or a life partner as most of his time was spent loving the arts. He was not much of a social person to begin with.
Recently I have rekindled my passion for doing some adhoc sketches. i had wanted to draw these drawings in honour of my late Uncle for some time now and so i finally got down to do it. So for the past few days i have been sketching whenever i have the time.
When I look at drawings, most of the time, I pay great attention to the detail in how the brushes or the pencil had been administered on the canvas apart from the general picture itself. What were the emotions that went with these blessed artists when they did that particular stroke? Was that anger? Was it excitement? Was there joy or sadness? Theres just so much of a story of an artist behind his artworks. Something that the rich and powerful will never understand. It was a pity that I had never had the opportunity to look at the artworks of my late uncle. Sometimes i cry about it. Sometimes i wonder what would be like to be able to comprehend his drawings. But i wasnt born yet.

The sketches i have produced may seem mainly dark, errie and negative to some. On the contrary, i find that sometimes negative artform can be beautiful just the same as chirpy ones. Negative art is a gift from God as well as positive art. I believe that God has given us the gift of sadness as well as happiness. If we cant feel sadness, we would never be able to appreciate compassion or even empathy. There is no love without sadness. Some of us are just born with the gift of a certain emotion which overwhelms our other kind of feelings. You can't just throw it away by tying your emotions to a tree or lampost or something. Its just not that simple especially when you are born with it. All our emotions are God's gift to us and it is up to us how we utalise that particular overwhelming emotion for the good of our society isntead of just discarding that gift from God.

In this tribute i chose the song Home from Foo Fighters in the background because the song was a form of Meme in my head whenever i drew these drawings. This song kept playing in my head over and over dispite the fact that i was listening to other songs in my earphones when i sketched at the time.
These sketches are a tribute to my late Uncle Joe. Some people say that I look allot like him. My mom told me not to regret not being able to meet him in my life. She tells me that Uncle Joe had never really left me. He just moved on to a different dimension. Which in a way, is quite true, because before my uncle passed away he had wanted to get himself a guitar and wanted to learn how to play it. Coincidentally, all my brothers including myself love playing the guitar. I guess his love for the arts has been embedded in my siblings and me. Also, i had always also considered myself as an ordinary Joe and an ordinary Joe i shall always be for richer or poorer......the same plain Joe as my late uncle chose.

Marshall

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