She now grunts in the night and nothing can be done about it, her uncle comes home only in the midnight though he placed a curfew in his house that nobody in his house should be outside by 10pm but he and his son Abel who always is out with his friends will come back almost at midnight. He comes to the window side and knocks gently so as not to alert anyone but Trin because he knew she barely sleeps, she wakes up immediately and slowly opens the door for him, then he asks her with a mouth reeking of marijuana "pile don come back?" that's his way of asking if his father was home and Trin on this particular night shakes her head in negation and he smiles and heads in, he asks of his food and Trin goes and gets it, he eats and thanks her, then she goes to bed, him too shortly. After a moment of twenty minutes a huge bank is heard at the metal door, everyone gets alerted and the furious voice of their father threatening to kick down the door if they don't open up quickly in a thunderous pitch. Trin rushes to get the door because no one else would and her aunt who hated her for no reason might start attacking her for hearing the knock and laying back like a madam. As she opens the door, a stench of alcohol greets her nostrils as the figure staggers in, he asks at the pitch of his voice with Spittles sprinting off his mouth if she is mad and where she's been the whole while he was knocking and why it took her so long to answer his call, she tries to explain but nothing in particular comes to her mind. He roars at her and asks her if she wants him to use his belt on her, she replies "no" and then he orders her to go and get him everyone in the family, she obeys and starts waking everyone up, they express their disgusts at her but quickly springs up when their father roars again that he's going to use a bucket of chilled water to wake them up. Trin knew that her aunt was awake and was expecting to be touched so she would find a way to attack Trin but Trin wisely wakes up his albino last and only daughter and instructs her to wake her mother, she obeys after muttering some insulting words at trin, Trin will move out to the sitting room and takes her seat with the other two sons of the family, Mr Stephen bellows again before his wife comes out dragging her feet and murmuring with her daughter following briskly from behind, he threatens to slap her till she bleeds but retains his edge of a sanity. Then he exclaims; "oh! Jesus..., have mercy on me" he then starts his story of how he left since morning and ate nothing except for the fifty naira kai kai (local gin) he took, and that got him real bad that he lost his way to a very far place, then he suddenly realizes himself a makes for home but he stumbles and falls many times before getting home and that explains his lateness. He then orders for his food, Trin rushes over and gets it, he then feigns annoyance at the strong garri and he promised to use it in place of a stone on Trin next time he makes such rubbish. she apologizes but he insists his wife begs him before he starts eating or he'll go to bed on an empty stomach and nobody in the house will sleep that night and he shouts Daniel shut amidst yawn! his wife begs him a and he starts to eat while everyone watches him to his delight and he looks at everyone with dread to see if anyone dared move but no one did not even his stubborn son because Abel knew that his father was prepared for trouble that night, Mr Stephen finished his food and goes to bed, Trin washes his clothes, dries them and irons them to enable it to dry while others slept and she went inside, takes out her dairy and starts writing with the illumination 100watts electric bulb, she writes: "MY VIEW OF THE ART WORLD AND MARKET.
I've been sidelining the art world and market with the view of a hyperrealist artist in the facades for a while now. its been two years already. I started my professional art journey on 2017 and since then am cocky enough to say that I've learnt a whole lot, though I still have infinity to learn. I've known a whole lot of legendary, advanced and amateur artists, collectors and galleries, auction houses both ancient and contemporary. I've been privileged enough to know many genres of art ; I can't go into details because the possibilities of mentioning them here is not to be considered. Through my observations, I understood that the renaissance is the best artistic age in the history of art but my sole aim of writing this article is to expel the obscurity about famous artists who spit on canvases today and sells it for millions. I understand its a matter of perception and choice but when has mediocrity became the basis for human intelligence?
Collectors only invests in art because of the names behind the arts and the artists portfolio and not genuine works of art. I am tempted to mention names will leave them anonymous. Art critics are groups who had never had a creative tool in their hands for life or classical art haters. How can a piece of scribbled doodle that looks like that of a poodle off kindergarten be valued at millions of dollars just because of the artist's name and artworks that takes real skills and heart wrenching patience sells for cents?
Another thing that have struck my notice is the value placed on dead artist's work over a contemporary artist. Art is an opium and a cankerworm, it takes almost all the time in the artist's life that the artist barely barely have time for himself and these artists are meant to live and die in penury and been looked down upon by the society despite his incredible skills because the world have been brainwashed into the practice of collecting names not art.
If our famous and richest artists today are to come faced with the artists of the renaissance, today's blue seal artists will be jailed for scam. Art market is no longer an avenue for skill celebration but an institution which pauperised the real artist and exploits them for monetary gains.
Let us try to embrace our nature which is boundlessness and not embrace mediocrity, Any collector out there should take this message as a call to order and start collecting art that really matters and speaks to you and invest in the artist provided that the artist has a vision. And for the real artists out there, may the source of creation which inspired you to create be your strength, I've done my part by leaving my footprints in this wet concrete sand, endeavor to pass this message along!" she smiles to herself and yawns, her eyes were budged out now. she keeps her diary back and sleeps off.
She wakes up the next day a little too sleepy but she got her act together as if she was heading for work but she actually wanted to use that opportunity to check out any art gallery, hotel or establishment that might need her hyper realistic art. She did her normal chores that morning before heading out, with the little cash she had in hand, she took a taxi that drove her to ring road, a very popular venue which has a big market and Secretariat close to it. She asked around the mini galleries she found but her speculations were confirmed that Benin city was mostly interested in sculpted pieces of art. She went to the only comprehensive art material market they had, and it was a subsidiary that went with the name 'Artworld' . She saw so many of her favourite art supplies which she's only been privileged to see online. She saw a tombow mono zero eraser and the refill, electric erasers and refills and art books that spun from oil painting, acrylic, water color and graphite and charcoal drawings. She saw many brands of pencils like Derwent, Faber castelle, conte a' Paris, lyra etc and papers like glossy cards, needle points, alabaster paper, cartridge papers of varying gsms, strathmore papers, arches papers, fabriano papers etc. They had canvases, linen and art packaging tools. She was so excited at what she witnessed which was a far cry from what was available to her in Onitsha. She bought the materials she needed for her chris Rock artwork titled 'after winter comes summer'. She later finished the artwork, posted it online but the model didn't recognise her so she moved on with her life. She continued to pester the man who contested and won the post of house of assemblies but one day the man scolded her and told her that he didn't force her to draw him and he owes her nothing, these words got to her and she lashed back which led to a lash of acrimony and Trin made a boisterous promise to the man that a day shall come when he'll have to beg her for money for his campaign and she swore on that, she then blocked him. Trin quitted her bakery job and applied for the posy of a housekeeper at a hotel opposite ugbor police station named 'fantasy hotel and suites' after she's tried out a couple others but all to no avail. Her uncle stood as her guarantor and she wrote an application that worked wonders for her like always. She was taken and she started learning the fundamentals of the job and in a space of three days, she was close to perfection, the MD took a particular likeness to her and increased her salary because of her dedication to the work, she would go to work every morning and she'll open all the windows in the rooms apportioned to her, open and clean the refrigerators in the rooms, she cleans the fan, under the beds and changes the bedspreads and dressing them with the new ones she got from the dry cleaner's quarters, she switches off lights, fans and water heaters. She ensures that soaps, towels and toilet tissues are in each room. She ensures to bring the television remote control to the centre table because the lodgers are always careless with stuff. She ensures that every unused room allocated to her is properly dressed and waste bin is clean. Anything she finds in the rooms that have been checked out of, she takes to the custody of the receptionists. She ensures to clean the room furnitures, toilet facilities and mirrors. She dusts the room and gets rid of cobwebs. she checks the drainage system and water closet to be sure that it was working perfectly. She mobs the rooms sparkling clean, then she turns on the air conditioner to help in the fast drying of the room and she activates the automatic air refresher , she then sweeps and mops the corridors before taking the changed bedspreads, pillow sheets and customers clothes to the dry cleaner's quarters for washing and ironing, she was apportioned six out of the thirty six rooms and she could be done at five o'clock almost everyday. They go home at six.
One day after work, she became so sick that she couldn't walk, her sickness hit her as a result of stress and starvation. She tried to go home that day but her body was failing her, one thing that often accompanied trin's sicknesses is dizziness. She was so dizzy that she feared she'll get knocked down by a vehicle but she held still to herself and set her mind on getting home, she walked some distance and for to a place where Hausas sell food, she tried to order something to eat with the Money she had and never wanted to use for transport but the appearance of the food got her nauseous and her appetite betrayed her. She was used to the food from the IBO tribe, she got up and with what remained of her strength made to her friends house near the bakery, who ushered her in, got her food from the nearby restaurant and she took drugs for malaria and typhoid fever bought from the pharmacy after she was done eating.
meanwhile these drugs were super exorbitant when compared to the amount she usually bought them in Onitsha, everything in Benin city was so costly. She got well at eight in the evening and she thanked her friend promising her that she'll find a way to pay her back but her friend saved her the trouble by telling her not to mind. Immediately she came home, her aunt was pissed off at the time she was coming back and bombarded her with questions, Trin gave he'd reasons but was only shown sympathy by been handed a bucket to go and fetch water for the family's use. She fetched about four twenty litre buckets from a far away borehole and later in the night when her crazy uncle came back, she made her light the wet firewood and she cooked some herbs for herself which she'll later have to use a clothe to cover herself against the heat of the herbs so that she perspires and heals through that way and that is after she might have taken out a five litre jerry can of the concoction she was going to drink, she drinks the bitter mixture and expresses the saddest face ever, her uncle only shouts instructions at intervals and he later slept off. Trin had gotten to know the cause of her uncle's crazy attitude. The truth is that when his uncle was a teenager, he jumped up playfully only to have his skull cut over by the ceiling fan at the exposure of his brains and before he could have a surgery to get his head together, air had gotten into some places it wasn't meant to be in his brain and so he became a little bit crazy and coupled with alcoholism, the house becomes a hell in a cell.
Trin couldn't take it anymore after all, what she came for she didn't see and she couldn't save a penny, she only happened to buy an android phone with the help of Abel but before she could be able to go home, she forgot it in the commercial bus she boarded, she was completely exasperated at that shocking discovery when she got down at bridge head in Onitsha, it was beyond words to her, she guessed that she went with nothing and came back with nothing except life's lessons.