- Title: SAVING OUR SONS
- Artist: Larry Poncho Brown
- Size: 22” X 29.75”
- Edition: S/N 850, A/P 100, RE 50
- Medium: Offset Lithography
This image was commissioned by the African American Male Leadership Institute to benefit the Saving Our Sons Initiative - Baltimore, MD 2005
SAVING OUR SONS
"Is not just a painting. It is Poncho's promise."
Larry Poncho Brown has mentored hundreds of artists since I was eight years old, in Baltimore and well beyond it. He is full of wisdom and he shares it freely. That is his way of giving back.
He often says there are three he looks at like sons. First, his own son, artist Mandela Brown. Then , the former linebacker turned full-time artist, educator and activist. Then Wendell Supreme Shannon, the geometric precision painter and muralist. I am the prodigal son, the one who wandered away from the studio into digital media and social media, only to return with skills that now help carry his legacy forward.
But Poncho does not only save sons. He saves daughters too, pouring into artists like Karen Buster and so many other women, and standing shoulder to shoulder with brothers like James Murphy.
Five young souls locked in embrace against the city skyline, this 2005 mixed media work shows what advocacy looks like when a man feels deeply. This is community. This is art family. This is a legacy that cannot be denied.