Who Wears It Better?

Every Cherokee family has one.

He’s single. Good-looking. Maybe a little bit of a black sheep. He has his own way of doing things and doesn’t seem particularly concerned about what anyone thinks of him.

Or maybe you see him at a Native gathering. He’s the guy who stands out. Maybe it’s his hat. Maybe it’s the way he’s dressed. Maybe it’s something he’s done that everyone will be talking about before the day is over.

That’s Somebody’s Uncle.

I’ve painted several of these men over the years in a series I’ve come to call Somebody’s Uncle. They aren’t portraits of particular people. They don’t even have individual names. They are more like an archetype—a familiar character you might recognize immediately if you’ve spent any time around a Cherokee family or a Native community.

But the idea comes from my own Uncle Keener Vann.

Uncle Keener always smelled a little like beer. He liked to fish. He was something of a loner among the family, but we knew that when he got together with his friends, things could take a wild turn.

When I was a child, my sister, my girl cousins and I would sit out in my grandmother’s driveway with him. We’d listen to him shoot the breeze, telling stories and carrying on. Every so often, he’d look at one of us and ask, with complete affection and a twinkle in his eye, “Are you my girlfriend?”

We knew exactly what he meant. We loved him.

The men in my Somebody’s Uncle paintings don’t look like Keener. They aren’t meant to. They have a fairly generic appearance, although there is no mistaking that they are Native men.

Usually, they’re kicked back on the grass or sitting on a blanket, legs crossed, looking completely unbothered by the world around them.

They’re not doing much, and that’s the point. They’re simply being.

There’s something I love about that particular kind of Native masculinity—the ability to sit back, watch the world go by, visit with friends, and appreciate the moment without feeling the need to fill every second with activity.

These men look like they have nowhere else to be. Maybe they don’t.

So here are three of my Somebody’s Uncle paintings.

Which one wears it better?