Victoria-born artist Joe Average, whose award-winning work could be seen on canvases, posters, coins, stamps, murals and jigsaw puzzles, died on Dec. 24.
He was 67.
Average passed away peacefully in his sleep, according to his siblings Mark Tebbutt and Karin Carson.
Carson told the sa国际传媒 that it was surreal to see the outpouring of remembrances from the wider public for her brother, which included tributes from people in politics, art, fashion, and LGBT communities in sa国际传媒 and beyond.
Average, a recipient of the Order of sa国际传媒 and the Order of sa国际传媒, was known for his championing of LGBT rights and AIDS-awareness advocacy and lived with a HIV-positive diagnosis for 40 years.
“I’m glad that he’s touched so many people. To me, he was just Brock. But the world is remembering him, which is fabulous,” Carson said.
Born as Brock David Tebbutt on Oct. 10, 1957, at Royal Jubilee Hospital, Average weighed seven pounds at birth, according to a notice published by his parents in the Victoria Daily Times.
He was the first of three sons born to Sylvia and Ken Tebbutt.
Sylvia was an art teacher and Ken was an architect.
Over the years, the family would move from Sooke to Oak Bay — where Average attended high school — and then to Esquimalt.
Carson, who was adopted into the family when Average was 10, said her eldest brother always spoiled her. “We’d meet before I had to go to school and we’d go to a diner and share breakfast.”
Average dropped out of Oak Bay High School at Grade 11 and left home at the age of 17.
He told the sa国际传媒 in an 1997 interview that he was kicked out of the family home after his father found out that Average was gay.
Carson said when her brother left, he travelled the world, first to Montreal, then to London, San Francisco and New York.
But he never failed to remember her birthday, and sent regular cards and telegrams, Carson said.
Eventually, he made his way to his long-time home of Vancouver. But just before that, Average had his first art exhibition, in Victoria.
Michael Harding recalls meeting Average during an artist hangout at a studio in Fan Tan Alley in the early 1980s. Average was in town from Toronto for just a weekend trip, he said.
At the time, Harding, who had just been appointed as a curator for Open Space gallery on Fort Street, was on the hunt for new artists to showcase.
“I realized straight away [that] his work was beautiful … a right sense of humour and it was colourful and glorious,” he said.
He included Average’s work in one of the artist collective’s group show during 1984. “And then I gave him a one-man exhibition.”
Realizing the commercial potential of Average’s works, Harding decided to skip the conventional commercial galleries, where about 40 to 60 per cent of the artwork price would go to the gallery operators, and opted straight for commercial customers — establishments such as wine stores, restaurants and office lobbies.
“His work was very saleable, you didn’t have to push it or anything like that,” Harding said.
Average’s part-time art career began taking off.
Prior to that, he had been making ends meet with a hodge-podge of jobs, such as working as a building manager and cooking food at Montgomery Cafe, an artist hangout on Vancouver’s Granville strip.
He also experienced periods of unemployment, particularly when his health first began to decline after his HIV-positive diagnosis at the age of 27.
A post on his website, which was updated shortly before his death, said Average was told by his doctor that he wasn’t expected to live long after the age of 30.
“I thought if I only have six months left to live I do not want to spend it in an unemployment insurance line. I needed a reason to want to live,” Average wrote. “Art was the only thing that I was ever good at. I did not want to be on my deathbed wondering if I could have succeeded as an artist.”
Average stopped sending in unemployment forms and started making art full-time, eventually becoming one of Vancouver’s best-known graphic artists.
He used to price his work at $180 — the monthly price of rent at his West End apartment. As he became better known, his artwork was coveted and sold at auction for thousands of dollars.
A largely self-taught artist, Average accumulated numerous awards and honours.
He was inducted into the Order of sa国际传媒 this June.
His art can be seen on canvas, murals, postage stamps, coins and street banners.
The artist was generous in lending his talents to a number of charities. He gave away much of his art to charities, particularly charities for children, cancer research, and AIDS treatment.
When he received the Order of sa国际传媒 in 2021, the province noted that “there has seldom been an HIV/ AIDS fundraising event that did not feature at least one Joe Average piece on the auction block.”
Average — who legally changed his name to Joe Average when he began pursuing art full-time, a moniker that came into being over drinks one night — told the sa国际传媒 in 2000 that his accountant said at one point he gave more money in art than he had ever made selling it.
Harding said that despite all the fame, Average remained the same generous, down-to-earth person that he met decades ago in Fan Tan Alley.
“Often you find when people get to be sort of famous, they lose their humility. And he didn’t — he’s just been real all the way through,” he said.
Photographer Wayne Höecherl, who became friends with the artist following a photo shoot, said Average had a flair for style.
Due to his medication, Average had an exceptionally thin frame. “The HIV drugs ate away most of the fat in his body,” Höecherl said.
But Average, who ordered suits from a tailor in Gastown for special occasions, was always impeccably dressed. “He always looked good. Even when he was at home in pyjamas, he probably looked good.”
In his later years, as his health began to deteriorate further, Average stopped painting and turned to drawing on digital tablets.
He remained enthusiastic about all-things art, said Höecherl, who would have regular lunches with Average to chat about art and photography.
Average would regularly encourage their server at the regular spot, an Indian resturant in the West End, to keep pursuing her artistic dreams, Höecher said.
Sales of Average’s work on his website have been paused at the family’s request.
There were plans for a small exhibition of Joe Average prints in March, but that has since been been put on hold.
At the artist’s request, there will be no memorial service.
On Saturday, his fourth-floor walk-up apartment where he died remained filled with art — his own and others.
“He celebrated not just his own, but everybody’s art,” said Carson, speaking from her brother’s apartment.
Average’s artificial orchids and plants are still scattered throughout the apartment.
One framed print inside the apartment caught her eye.
A simple drawing of three hearts, underlined by these words — be kind to one another.
It was words that her brother lived by, which he turned into a print to support health-care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, Carson said.
“That’s how he would want to be remembered,” she said. “For three years, he did the 7 p.m. cheer to recognize the health-care workers during COVID, and he ended every cheer with that phrase — be kind to one another.”
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