Joe Average (born 1957) is a Canadian artist who resides in Vancouver, British Columbia. Diagnosed HIV+ at age 27, Average made the decision to commit the rest of his life to art, and to challenge himself to live by his art. He was born in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
Average frequently donates work to charitable causes, such as Vancouver's annual Art for Life auction. His work has been used for such projects as A Loving Spoonful (a charity which provides meals to people with terminal illnesses) and the Davie Village. Average has also been selected to judge submissions for Vancouver's AIDS memorial and anti-homophobia posters.
Average is known for his cheerful, colorful, cartoon-like work, including images of flowers, animals and insects, and people. He has received many awards and honors, including civic merit awards, the Caring Canadian Award (1998) and the Queen's Golden Jubilee Silver Medal for Outstanding Community Achievement (2002). Vancouver mayor Philip Owen issued a civic proclamation to designate November 3, 2002 as "Joe Average Day" in the city.
Average was honored as one of two grand marshals of Vancouver's annual gay pride parade in August 2006. In 2011, he was suffering from lipodystrophy, a not-uncommon side effect of anti-viral drugs.
Famous quotes containing the words joe and/or average:
“This might be the end of the world. If Joe lost we were back in slavery and beyond help. It would all be true, the accusations that we were lower types of human beings. Only a little higher than apes. True that we were stupid and ugly and lazy and dirty and, unlucky and worst of all, that God Himself hated us and ordained us to be hewers of wood and drawers of water, forever and ever, world without end.”
—Maya Angelou (b. 1928)
“... there is nothing more irritating to a feminist than the average “Woman’s Page” of a newspaper, with its out-dated assumption that all women have a common trade interest in the household arts, and a common leisure interest in clothes and the doings of “high society.” Women’s interests to-day are as wide as the world.”
—Crystal Eastman (1881–1928)