Happy Valentine’s Day
Happy Valentine’s Day, my friends. I love you all minus none.
Me, here, painting away on a beautiful Valentine’s Day, seven years ago.
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BEFORE THE BLACKOUT
As I think about my new granddaughter, my daughter and what they know about me, about Africa, and about their tradition, a tormenting thought ran through my mind:
We, members of my generation, stand between the light and the void. And we are the last stand holding up the ancestral heritage. We must mine what is available and keep them in a culture bank, or too much will perish.
Congratulations to my darling daughter,
Congratulations to my darling daughter, Olatoun Okediji.
She became a US citizen today.
We traveled to San Antonio for the ceremony.
Ọwọ́ as Hand and Eye
Ọwọ́ as Hand and Eye
I showed Iya Oyo the drawing of her portrait I made one day. She said, “Ọ̣wọ́ rẹ gún,” (Your hands are straight), as she admired the portrait.
Baba Oyo responded with, “Ojú rẹ̀ gún” (His eyes are straight).
I was baffled. “What is straight, my eye or my hand?” I asked them.
THE RETURN (Part one)
His ordeal began with a brief phone call.
“Hallo? Hallo? Honorable! Are you there? Your mother. She was stolen from her house.”
A sharp pain pinched him in the middle of the chest and traveled slowly down to the bottom of his stomach.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” he thought.
For the past week he had been nursing an ominous feeling that something beyond his control was going to happen. Somehow his mind kept going to his mother.
He was thinking of driving to the village this weekend to visit her.
“Hallo? Hallo? Are you still there?” the voice asked again.
THE BUILDER AND THE PAINTER
I’m building an art gallery in Austin TX.
The gallery is now nearing completion—hopefully, it will be ready in January 2021.
It’s only a modest gallery, just to satisfy the need for an African art gallery in Texas, such a great state, yet without such a gallery devoted to the art of Africa.
The architect is Beau Frail, from Florida.
The Engineer is R.D. Hammond, from Texas.
My first month
My first month in the United States, 1992.
I began to paint in my office at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
I was trying to discover myself again in a new world after leaving behind Nigeria and everything that was meaningful to me, everything that had anchored me.
