The artist and the muse(s)

My most recent drawing of Mbasughun Ukpi.

In 2015, I started taking a lot of sunset pictures. I'd post on Facebook and feel a sense of fulfilment each day I documented the sun's journey. I called myself a sun chaser. Then came Mbasughun Ukpi. I noticed her penchant for taking nature photographs and sharing those pictures on Facebook almost in a rigorous, ritual-like, daily routine. I also noticed the way she wrote so beautifully.

A sunsetgang photograph from 2016. Phone masts used to be one of the main features of my photos from then. I saw them as effigies of human ambition in contrast to the simplicity of nature.

Now, 2015 was a year when there were still a handful of young literati on Facebook, flexing their lingual muscles through poems and stories and essays. I was also caught in that Web (it isn't a bad Web at all; on the contrary the positive peer pressure on Facebook taught many of us how to write). It wasn't uncommon to see people weave something poetic or lyrical into their online cognomen (eg. Sam the poet or Scribblysis Sampson or that kind of jazz) or write poems everyday with the intent of winning online acclaim, but Mbasughun was just so different, so raw, so energetic and beautiful. The originality of her words and the apt way she captured emotions and thoughts (mostly her personal thoughts) were so gripping. At least for me.

So we got talking. Of course that started with comments and reactions on each other's posts, our discovery of mutual friends and then the inbox energy. It was magical, undeniably. When you meet someone who strikes a chord with your soul, you can't help but notice and dance along to the beats even if your feet are weary. We saw eye to eye on a lot of issues and had several common interests. It was all purely artistic energy between us - and still is. We then decided to start using a hash tag, #sunsetgang, on our posts of nature and sunset pictures. 

Another sunsetgang photo I took in 2016 near Federal University of Agriculture, Abẹ́òkúta (FUNAAB) male hostel.

This began a most wonderful period of documentary of the sky, trees and everything beautiful in between. Several of our mutual friends such as Faith Igwemadu (oh, my story about her is for another day), Ìfẹ́ Àíkí, Ejovwoke Mary Ogwori, Vera Chinonso, Luke Agada etc, all artists and writers, joined in on the bandwagon. It was a time of our lives as we connected very fluidly.

Mbasughun (Mackenzie) Ukpi, daughter of Ityoyila Ukpi.

At some point we started planning an exhibition of art and poetry based solely on the theme of nature. That was supposed to be a Mbasughun and I thing but we threw it open. That led to our group trek from Freedom Park to African Artists Foundation, a hike that featured photography and physical bonding among ten or so of us. Well, the exhibition deal didn't work (because more than two can sometimes be a crowd) but the energy between M (as I now like to call her) and I remained.

I am misconstrued, charcoal and acrylic on canvas, 2020.

Something else made me connect even more with her: her pictures. Good God, the energy! You could literally feel the synergy between her and the universe in many different contexts as represented in many different pictures. This made me unwittingly start a visual documentation process of her as I thought she had a lot of stories to share not just through her writings and musings but through her photographs too. Each one is a timeless depiction of a being in constant levitation above unawareness of oneself and one's place in the world. Ever since, her pictures have been sources of creative energy for me.

Called Out, acrylic on black toned paper, 2019 (one of the paintings in the Grief Project)

In late 2018, her father passed on. This led to her negotiation of the new reality she found foisted upon her rather prematurely - that of grief. She invited me to work on a project with her which would document the beauty her father was (an apple doesn't fall far from the tree). The project, which we initially called the grief project, was one which featured 30 pairs of letters from her to her father and illustrations from me. Some of my pieces were birthed from some of her letters and vice-versa. This facilitated a new kind of creative exchange I had only envisaged in the past but had the privilege of exploring during the duration of the project.

Our manuscript is ready. I have been fitted with a new way of seeing death, grief, beauty and the world in general as a result of the project, but more so I have been privileged to know a golden soul to a great extent. Friendship has unraveled with fresh contexts during these five or so years. This is my story of the most important muse in my life (note: my spouse is next in line for this extensive kind of documentary. You guys, keep your arms folded). 

Every artist deserves muses who make them see the world in special ways.