Senior Art Exhibit 2008 - Joe Mullins

While known primarily as an instrument for musical expression, my journey with the guitar has taught me that it is more. Though they may appear similar on the surface, each guitar is unique. Though they speak a similar language, each guitar possesses an individual voice. Though they possess individual voices, each guitar sings in a universal tongue. Each has a conception, a birth, a life, and a death. Some live many years; some visit countless destinations; and some sing to multitudes. Others are sheltered, their lives spent alone and forgotten. And others die…

Old pirates, yes, they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the Almighty
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly
Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom?
Cause all I ever have
Redemption songs

Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look? Ooh!
Some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fulfill the book

Won't you help to sing
These songs of freedom
cause all I ever have
Redemption songs

- Bob Marley