By Maggie Green

Cars halted in the street and cyclists steered off the path to watch as six men wheeled a bird-shaped coffin along Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd on Feb. 22. They were followed by a crowd of mourners clad in black and red, onlookers stepping in time with the drums, and photographers buzzing around the entire ordeal like flies. The mourners filled the wooden coffin with notes to their departed loved ones, and it was their task to deliver it across a stream near the Fayetteville Public Library safely to the ancestors. Fearlessly leading the procession was Jacob Paa Joe Jr. wearing a lion mask. At every turn, he guided the crowd of over 50 people through the mock procession of a traditional Ghanaian funeral.

Jacob Paa Joe, 36, and his father, Paa Joe, are coffin artists in Ghana. They specialize in crafting proverbial coffins, which take the shape of anything that represents the life of the deceased. The style became popular in the 1960s in southern Ghana, where funerals are a celebration of life as reflected by the colorful designs. For example, a fisherman might be buried in a boat, or someone known for loving hot dogs can be buried in a six-foot wooden hot dog. Paa Joe Coffin Works has even been commissioned to do genitalia-shaped coffins, Coca-Cola bottles, shoes and cigarettes.

“Funerals should be fun in a way,” Jacob said. The coffin Jacob was asked to make in Fayetteville was of a Sankofa bird. It represents the Ghanaian principle of the importance of looking to the past to determine the best way forward. For Jacob, this meant looking back on the years of his father’s teachings to guide him in the future of his life and their business as Paa Joe’s health declines with age.

Before the procession, Jacob read his letter aloud to the crowd and placed it inside the bird. It was to his father, now 77 years old, who is an internationally renowned artist whose sculptures have been featured in the Smithsonian, the British Museum, and purchased by celebrities and world leaders.

“He is growing old,” Jacob explained. “Or he would have been here with me working on this project. This is my first appearance working outside in the world without him being by my side. I told him before I left that I would make him proud.”

Jacob’s solo residency at the University of Arkansas signifies his emergence as the new face of Paa Joe Coffin Works. His innovation seeks to transform the business and ultimately his father’s legacy, taking it to new global heights. During this transitional period, he must navigate his various ambitious projects without his father for the first time in his life.

A coffin of this magnitude would normally take Jacob six to eight weeks to construct, even with the help of his esteemed father and their many assistants at their workshop in Ghana. However, his deadline was only two weeks and three days.

The first time I visited Jacob’s workspace in the UA Studio and Design Center, I could tell he was hesitant to leave his work to talk with me and eager to return to it when we finished. He was wearing khaki pants, black Crocs and a navy T-Shirt depicting a pint of beer with a Band-Aid on the glass. The text above it read “THIRST AID.” Sawdust clung to every available inch of him and sprawled off the plastic covering the concrete floor. Wood glue clotted on his fingers, but he didn’t seem to notice.

He was building the bird’s body using short planks of wood, slightly angling each new piece to form a curve, and filling in the gaps with a mixture of wood glue and sawdust to smooth out the form. He cut the boards with a hand saw and shaved the bulk off the body with an adze, which looks like a pickaxe without the pointy end.

“Sometimes we have a few conflicts,” Jacob said about working with his father. “I want to bring in the new technology, but he will say, ‘No you can’t do that! You have to do this.’”

Paa Joe’s use of traditional tools is one aspect of his work that fascinates their international audience and makes the large-scale works so impressive. But given the short deadline and absence of his father, Jacob decided to use the power tools available in the wood shop. He said the art students working alongside him taught him new techniques and how to use the machines he was unfamiliar with.

Veronica Huff was part of a group of art students who visited Ghana and Paa Joe Coffin Works in May 2023. She saw the trip as a chance to return to her Ghanaian roots.

“It was literally just hammer and nails,” Huff said about the workshop. “That was it. And the shaving tool. Other than that, I didn’t really see anything else. Here, (Jacob has) been using the shaver machine, but there they’re just doing it by hand.”

She also said they don’t use measurements, which explained why Jacob could be seen using the handle of a hammer to estimate the placement of a piece of the neck.

“Here you have to be precise with things for assignments, but with him, it was just a flow,” Huff said. “It was beautiful, and I learned a lot.”

Janine Sytsma is the professor of global African art at the U of A. She was one of the professors who facilitated Jacob’s residency in Fayetteville after she led Huff’s study abroad trip. Sytsma said she was excited the project could involve the entire school of art and the community to learn more about Ghanaian funeral practices.

“We’ve even had involvement from art education,” Sytsma said, “and I love that because I love the idea of some of our students bringing this tradition to their younger students.”

She expressed her admiration for Jacob’s innovation as he has taken on greater roles in the family business and for the overall atmosphere of artistic expression in Ghana’s capital, Accra, that she wanted her students to learn from.

“There is a vibrant art scene in Accra,” Sytsma explained, “more so than in some other countries with strong art centers in Africa. There’s a lot of support for rigorous experimentation.”

Another Ghanaian artist, Va-Bene Elikem Fiatsi, visited Fayetteville during Jacob’s residency. She was there to share her activist performance art but had the opportunity to accompany one of the classes visiting Jacob’s workshop. Sytsma said Fiatsi’s family had actually purchased two coffins from Paa Joe Coffin Works. The family couldn’t decide on one design, so they asked the coffin artists to make two.

“I thought our funerals took forever in the Black community here, as in taking a while to bury our loved ones,” Huff said with a laugh, “but they take maybe two weeks or sometimes months because they’ve got to build the coffins.”

In Fayetteville, Huff helped Jacob with much of the construction of the bird and brought him homemade Ghanaian food when he was feeling sick. She suspected he may have inhaled too much sawdust while working indoors.

“I know being here is way different for him because the space is open over there in the shop (in Ghana),” Huff said. “You could just walk in and see the variety of coffins they have and that they’re working on. It was so chill and laid back, and there was a constant beautiful breeze blowing through.”

Jacob and his siblings were always in their father’s workshop growing up. Around the age of 9, they were tasked with fetching tools and supplies so Paa Joe and his assistants could continue working.

“I was there all the time, but I never knew I would be an artist myself,” Jacob said. “Back then, God was preparing me, but I never knew.”

He gestured to his chest and said around that same age, he felt a divine calling to become a pastor, which he does part time while managing the business.

“I have the gift,” he said, beaming. “The feeling to do God’s work was there, and He has given me a lot of revelations and knowledge and wisdom.”

In secondary school, Jacob studied building construction and had ambitions to become a contractor or project manager, but Paa Joe told his son he could not leave the business to become a pastor or a contractor. Jacob said his father had sent him to school primarily to learn English so he could communicate with international buyers. He also could not pay for Jacob to complete his education because Paa Joe Sr. would need to hire more help at the shop.

“In 2008 my dad told me, ‘You can’t go to university. You need to stay behind and work with me. I’m getting old, and you are my successor. You need to take over.’ It was a very challenging moment for me,” Jacob said.

Jacob started his apprenticeship under his father that year, but hardship soon struck. The man who gave Paa Joe the land the shop was on had passed away, and his family said the coffin artist would need to pay to lease the land if he wanted to stay. Paa Joe refused and moved his family from the center of Accra to a plot of land almost two hours away from the capital. Few people wanted to travel that far for a coffin, even if it was by Paa Joe.

“It was a very critical moment,” Jacob recalled. “We went through a financial crisis. There was no commission for a period of weeks or months. I had a lot of friends I was dependent on; they were feeding me, and it was a very tough moment.”

Paa Joe, Jacob and his younger brother, and five apprentices moved to the new location. However, eventually all the apprentices left when they ran out of hope for the future of the business. Jacob said he and his brother had no option but to learn the trade to keep the family business alive.

“No one was there to work, and Paa Joe was growing weaker,” Jacob recalled. “We thought of leaving, but I looked back, and I said ‘No.’ That is another part of the meaning of Sankofa. Paa Joe has been very famous. He has received international exposure and international commissions. If I should leave, that would mean it is the end of his legacy. That is the end of his life.”

Jacob’s apprenticeship lasted until 2016 when he was ready to graduate and marry his wife, Thuodora. They have three children, the oldest of which is 6. While juggling fatherhood, traveling internationally for artist residencies, preaching when he has time and co-managing the business at home, he is also building an academy in Ghana to teach people at home and abroad how to build the proverbial coffins. A four-story building is already under construction.

However, he said he has not considered passing the business down to any of them the way his father did. So far, he is content with the prospect of teaching his father’s craft to students all over the world.

“Looking at my name, it is Jacob Paa Joe Jr., so I am an extension of him,” Jacob said. “If he were here, he would be working, and I would only be here assisting him. The art would be on him. So, since he’s not here, I am here as an extension of him to make his dream still come to pass … Sankofa means we are trying to regain back the glory, the international publicity and exposure.”

Jacob was working for 12 hours every day in Fayetteville, including weekends, but said he was still behind on the project just three days before the procession. I offered my help, and he accepted.

It was a pleasantly warm day for Arkansas in February, and he had moved his setup from the unsettlingly pristine white walls of the Studio and Design Center to the school’s inconspicuous wood shop out back. The garage doors were flung open to let the breeze float through like they would be back home in Ghana. He had finished building the sculpture over the weekend, and it was perched atop a precarious little rolling cart ready for sanding.

His beer shirt was wadded up and creased with dried glue in the belly of the coffin, and he now wore a Santa T-shirt with a short trench coat that matched the color of the sawdust.

Jacob pointed toward the bird and asked me to start sanding the glops of dried wood putty. I reached for the orbital sander, but he told me the battery was dead. He said he could charge it if I felt comfortable using it. Until then, it would have to be done by hand with folded sheets of sandpaper.

We fell into a rhythm of me sanding while he mounted the feet on the base. He looked over my shoulder occasionally to compliment my progress or give tips. When I was done, he said we needed to lift the coffin and lay it on the ground. I glanced at the wooden vessel, solid wood and large enough to hold a corpse, with doubt, but Jacob seemed sure of my strength and braced himself at the butt of the bird. I wrapped my arms around the neck but paused as he said, “Wait,” and started to scoot his side into position.

Suddenly, the wobbly cart lurched under the weight of the Sankofa. The wood hit the concrete with a heavy thud, and I watched as two weeks of this man’s life fractured in my arms. Clinging to the neck of the Sankofa, too afraid to move, I watched Jacob’s face fall just as hard as his bird. His laced fingers cradled the back of his head as he slowly surveyed the damage.

Two cracks blighted the thick neck: One snaked along the base, and the other was closer to the head. The top crack was about an inch wide and revealed the nails holding back the inky darkness of the hollow interior.

“I think it is destroyed,” he said.

I didn’t know how to answer, so we stared in silence. He pressed his palms together under his chin, eyes closed, head tilted toward the sky and sent up a quick prayer before returning to his somber expression.

“We will fix it,” I reassured him.

“Yes, we will fix it,” he replied.

He took a few more minutes to think after instructing me on which part to sand next. Shortly after I had lapsed back into a meditative state of filing down the wood putty, he laid out his plan. We would need to fill the gaps with extra-strength wood glue and nail together the crack at the base. The top and larger break would require us to hammer the bird’s face to scoot the wood back on the nails.

He left me to continue sanding while he went inside to grab the glue and returned promptly. In his position, I would have taken a few minutes to mourn the setback in the bathroom. However, his stoic disposition did not falter as we righted the bird and wheeled it into the wood shop.

I held the coffin by the neck with two other students as Jacob climbed inside. One of them, the graduate student monitoring the shop, shot me a worried glance as the structure wobbled with each hammer blow.

We had finished driving nails into the bottom fissure and needed to address the dire situation at the top. Jacob slathered extra-strength wood glue on the edges of the gap and told us to brace ourselves. He began whacking the head with a board, and each impact sent most of the coffin’s weight into my hip. We tried hitting, pushing and lifting the head, but the nails were still exposed.

With a sigh, Jacob pulled the head off and the metal teeth slid out of the base. He removed them and pressed the seam back together. The graduate student hammered the nails back into the neck at an angle to pierce both sides as Jacob held the head steady. It was a success.

We cut, glued and screwed two blocks of wood under the arch of the neck for extra support, which was the only indication the cracks ever existed after it was sanded and sprayed with cream-colored paint. With the cracks adequately sealed, the next few days were spent painting the finishing touches.

On the day of the mock funeral procession, a group of participants wearing green face masks would intermittently jump out of the tree line and block the path of the procession. They crouched and stalked toward the coffin, hands outstretched. Their part was called “The Lizards.” In Ghana, lizards are believed to be evil spirits, and they try to prevent the coffin from reaching the ancestors across the river into the afterlife.

“To dispel the lizards,” Jacob shouted into a megaphone, “we must spin the coffin!”

The six pallbearers dug their heels into the pavement and spun the heavy cart once, twice, three times, then changed direction. As they did so, the lizards fled back into the trees to find the site of their next ambush. Cheers from the mourners followed their departure, and the march continued. It reminded me of Jacob’s response to the cracks in the Sankofa. When difficulty appeared, he pivoted and marched forward.

The family of the dead does their best to ensure their loved one has a successful transition into the afterlife. They fill the coffin with money, valuables, and sometimes food and water before it is buried. Death is the beginning of a new journey to the world of the ancestors, and they might need money to buy safe passage along the way. The participants modeled this tradition as the coffin approached the area designated as the cemetery, which was the Lower Ramble, a bridge over a stream by the public library.

The coffin rounded the corner to face the bridge, and as if on cue, the sun peeked out from the clouds and a smattering of rain began to kiss the rocks and the faces of the mourners. The procession halted at the edge of the bridge, but the pallbearers delivered the Sankofa filled with messages of love, hope and grief into the open arms of the ancestors who carried it across the stream. The crowd cheered, the rain ceased and the sun hid behind the clouds.

“It is a blessing,” Jacob said, looking at the dark splotches the raindrops left on the ground. “It wasn’t raining until we got to the spiritual world — the cemetery — and after the coffin arrived in the afterlife, it stopped raining. What is the significance behind this?”

The coffin was shepherded back to the studio as students bombarded Jacob with hugs by the bridge. They thanked him for coming and said they would miss him. Jacob planned to leave Arkansas in three days to do another residency in Pittsburgh — there he would build a rooster, which is a symbol for leadership, for the August Wilson African American Cultural Center. It would be his second residency without Paa Joe.

“I wish my father was here with me today, but he is in Accra,” Jacob told me as we walked back. “I know he would have loved to take part in the procession. I felt very emotional when I remembered he is not here.”