Arte de Cuba

Can you stand just one more post about Cuba?  This time it's a visual treat for you folks who don't live here in Portland Maine.  Since the artist reception is over, I thought I'd post some photos of how I hung the show in my little mini gallery inside Constellation Gallery.  Just click here and then go backwards for a bit.  All the work in this show will be uploaded to my site at Fine Art America if you'd like to have a print.

I have also finally processed all the "art" photos that I took while in Havana.  This includes a taste of public art as well as street art and work from an art show that I enjoyed while there.  And as in our country, some of the best artists are taking it to the streets.  They are up now in the Flickr site here.

This photo above to me is what Havana is all about - beautiful, decaying, but still hanging in there.  I also have been working in my usual way on a post modern portrait of Cuba which encompasses photos from Vinales as well as Havana.

 

I've submitted this portrait to the next show at Constellation Gallery, have not found out yet if it's been juried in.

Small Soiree

If I don't see you at the reception, Gallery hours are 

Monday through Saturday from noon to 4 pm.

Centerfold

My Viva Cuba show made the cut for the centerfold for the Portland Press Herald today.  I had a story with legs (not many Mainers have been to Cuba apparently) and submitted the information in the right format and met their deadline for a photo.  And most of all, I was lucky!  PR is such a crap shoot. I don't mind giving Imogen Binnie and Space Gallery a little extra coverage either!

Thunderous Applause

That's the term I always used when directing actors at the show's end when we were finished.  I had the opportunity to hear just that this past weekend, thanks to the good folks at Mad Horse Theatre.  Christine Louis Marshall, Mad Horse's Artistic Director, put together a most marvelous cast for the staged reading of The Crucible, part of the "Six Pack of Miller" program that featured readings of Arthur Miller's classics.  I was cast as Tituba, a Barbados slave of the Reverend Parris, who is usually played by a black woman.  But this being Maine, they used me.  My difficult task was to take on a slight Caribbean accent, as I envisioned the character to be a white slave.  The cast got thunderous applause both Saturday night and even a standing O after the Sunday afternoon show.  That is the 2nd time in my life as an actor, that I was part of a cast that received that accolade.  The other time had been playing Margaret in Harmony Codes for Beyond the Proscenium in Sacramento the weekend after 9-11.

In other theatre related news, I'll be directing a 10 minute play by a local playwright in Acorn Theatre's 24 Hour Theatre Project.  At 5 pm on Saturday, the playwrights are given a line of dialogue, a setting, an object which must be used in some way and the number of characters in the play.  The next morning, I meet with my cast and receive my play and we have the day to rehearse before it's seen by audiences that night at 7 pm.  Wheeeeeeeeeeee   I did a similar project with Big Idea Theatre in Sacramento before we moved and it was a kick.

I've just about finished hanging the Cuba show and will post a photo of the installation when I am completely finished.  I'm hosting an artists reception on May 8th and ignoring the 1st Friday to see if people are more likely to come to an event if it's NOT on 1st Friday.

Then the really terrific news came this morning in an email from the Professional Womens Photographers:

"Congratulations!

Julie Saul selected one of your images for Honorable Mention in PWP's Spring 2013 International Women's Call for Entry. With over 1300 images submitted, having your photograph selected is a wonderful recognition of your talent and skill."

It's an on-line show that will be up for a year and it was Mujer Doble that won me this honor.

New York Museum

Yes, I can now say I have my work in a NY museum.... the Guggenheim to be exact.  All you have to do is to click HERE..      So what thinks ya'll of this?

In other news, Emily the woman from Sage Organizer is coming in for another session to help clean and organize the studio.  I've also almost finished with getting all the art together to print that I'll upload to Adorama.  Then I'll organize a small reception party down at my little space at Constellation for the work.  Then all I have to do is to make that film of the photos for the Woodfords Club which is due end of this month!

I'm thinking the guys must be Jose Marti, Che Guvara and Grandpa Fidel.  I call him that because when people there (even the young and the liberal) spoke of him, they did so with great kindness and softness.

Deja Vue All Over Again

Just when I thought I had completely exhausted all I had to say about Cuba and our trip there, without just putting up more photos here, comes an email from the lovely and talented La Hefa (aka Elizabeth Opalenik) who has finished putting together our book about Cuba!  Just about everyone from our little group submitted 6 photos for the book and Elizabeth put them all together for this wonderful book that truly encompasses Cuba from different eyes. 

And yes, I'm still working the photos to have about 20 printed for a new show at my mini-gallery at Constellation and to pick ones that will work for a 20 minute video that I want to present at the Woodfords Club here in Portland. 

We have finished the shooting for the 3 Graces for Environmental Awareness project and now I need to start working with the images.  I'm also considering taking a workshop from one of my favorite artists - Mary Taylor.  

But I suppose my biggest news is a return to the boards!  (I know fellow journalists, I buried the lead.)  I was asked to play a part in The Crucible by Arthur Miller which is part of the Mad Horse Theatre Company's Six Pack of Miller series.  Will be great fun as this is a series of staged readings of the work and I'll get to work with Al D'Andrea from SnowLion Rep!

Post Cuba

Was talking to my friend Phil today and the topic of my recent trip to Cuba came up.  Told him I'd go again in a heartbeat, which I would especially today as it was 28 degrees when I jumped into the car to go to the gym.  Speaking of Cuba, I'm still obsessing over the photos trying to decide which will go into my mini gallery show at Constellation and which will go into the slide show that I'm putting together for the Woodford's Club (waves at Nora).  I'll be underscoring it with music from one of the groups we saw there, an all-women group of musicians who were playing in the courtyard of a building which housed small, artisan shops and a little cafe.

I thought I had some video of these ladies playing, but no!  Which means I will make a little film out of the slide show and underscore it completley with the music of these ladies from their latest CD (which I bought) Amor Cervaza.

When I get the show up at Constellation Gallery, I've decided that I will hang string on the walls and "hang" the photos from the strings like the Cubans do with their laundry!

But the original reason I decided to post today is to tell you that another Travel Blog - Travlr - is carrying my post about getting to Vinales.

In Art World News, let me bring you this flash from Art Fag City.  Had never heard of this group of young artists before, but love what they're doing!  What do you think?

Looking Back

Have I come to any conclusions about Cuba and her people?  The country is at the tipping point of change and I hope that they will be able to forge a new kind of politics in which entrepreneurship holds sway over big-box capitalism and that the socialism that gives everyone a free education and free health care can be supported. 

The photo of the two boys above is called : "Boys: Morros y Christianos".  That is Spanish for Moors and Christians and is the name of one of the national dishes in Cuba consisting of black beans and white rice.  One of the first things I noticed in the country is the easy attitude the people have toward race.  Of course with a tourist, one is on  their best behavior.  I hope that it's not a situation like they had in Yugoslavia.  Tito, the dictator, wasn't liked by many, but he did hold the country together.  Everyone was united under communism.  But when he was ousted, it seemed like the ethnic groups went crazy killing each other.  They wouldn't see their commonalities as humans, but just their differences.  I just don't understand how families can perpetuate hatred.  We're all just human beings on the same planet.

Well you've seen some of my photos illustrating certain events from our trip and there will be a new, fresh set of photos on the Flickr site in the near future.  But what about how the other photographers in our group saw Cuba?  Here's a link to the slide show that was put together our final night in Havana when we all had dinner together.

Last Day in Havanna

It seemed as if we had just arrived at the same time that it felt like we had been here for quite a while - you know that feeling?  When we had been at the print coop earlier, we had liked some of the work there and it was inexpensive to boot, so we knew we wanted to get back there and what better day to do it than our last one in Havana.  There was one little trip in the morning and in the afternoon, we were to go to an Afro-Cuban dance rehearsal.

During one of the days that I opted out to put my swollen ankles up and sort through the photos I had shot the day before, JK had gone with a group that wandered into an antiques store where they had old photos.  When he told me about that, I knew that was one other place I wanted to visit and it was on the way to the print gallery.  This was how we met Carlos Manuel, owner of the antique shop, who sold me 20 old photos (which will be incorporated into some new art in the near future) for $20!

He was a really funny guy and was very talkative with us.  He pointed to a plastic bag that looked as if it had clothes in it saying that he was giving some of his shirts to this old man in the neighborhood because he stopped smoking cigars and got fat so they didn't fit anymore.  His mother didn't think he should just give them away so he called her a dirty capitalist with a great smile on his face.  It's ironic in that here he is running an antique shop.  He told us of how he once volunteered for a year to work in Mozambique because Fidel said Cubans should help Africans because they were brought to the island as slaves.  So he taught business practices there, wrote a book about them and then translated the book into Portuguese for the people.

As we walked over the the print place, we passed this statue of Cervantes, author of what is know as the first modern Western novel - Don Quixote.  It seems generous in a way that while the Cubans embraced a Socialist system, they still had respect for their Spanish Heritage.  Respect for old equipment can be found in the Print Co-operative a short distance away. This bad photo

represents the 2nd time I tried to take this guy's photo in 3 days.  He was on the move constantly.  I suppose I could have just asked him if I could take his portrait, I didn't want to bother him as it looked like he was working on several pieces at once.  We bought two small prints, one involved printing or silk-screening onto old vinyl LPs (hear that Cherie Hacker?).

Then it was time for lunch at the same paladar that we had been at the first day.  Their menus were printed by the print coop and even the little decoupage boxes in which the bill was delivered was artful!

After lunch it was time to get back to the hotel to meet up with the other photographers and see where the Afro-Cuban dance troupe was rehearsing.  It was like a lobby where they rehearsed and little space for photographers and difficult to shoot as it was a long narrow space. Here's the link to the video on You Tube.  We also had our final dinner that evening with our guides and photographer guides.  The next morning, it was packing up and getting on the bus for the ride out to the airport and going through customs.  Adios Havana!

Vinales and Back

After lunch, we climbed aboard the bus again to have a rather exclusive tour of a tobacco curing and sorting house (escogida).  The tobacco comes here after speding between 45-60 days at the drying barns.  Here the leaves are misted and then aired and then fermented in piles so impurities are released.  Temperature and humidity are quite important at this point.

Because of the connections made by Kip and the folks at Santa Fe Photo Workshop, the Escogida Manager gave us a tour of the place.  You can see where the women who are the sorters are up front.  In the back here was an office and a place for time cards and then into another building where more of the tobacco was fermenting.

Now the leaves go to the sorters who "grade" the tobacco.  It was hard to get a good shot of these women because they were working so quickly.  I asked the Manager why only women were working there and she said it was because they were more patient and paid better attention to details than men would.

After the leaves are graded, they are once more sprayed with water and covered in burlap to be fermented again and sent to the factories in square bales wrapped in palm bark called tercios.

It takes two years before the tobacco is ready to be made into the famous cigars, considered the best in the world.  JK taking a puff off a freshly made cigar.

After our tobacco adventure, it was off to another tobacco farm.  We were given a demonstration of rolling a handmade cigar in the drying house and then got to wander around a bit. 

Many of the women photographers remarked upon the good looks of this farmer.  When his wife heard, she laughed and take him away and then he'll have to send me money!

These birds are really free range, they wandered all over outside their hen house.  Mr Turkey kept trying to scare us all off  by fanning his tail feathers or he was infatuated with one of us, hard to tell. 

 

We even got to see a horse getting shod.  Really freaked me out as I didn't know they used such long nails to make the horse shoe stay on.  We got back on the bus and went back to the overlook since it was the golden part of the day with wonderful lighting and we all ordered drinks at this wonderful little hotel 

Would love to come back here and laze around the pool.  Would be great if future trips would include an overnight stay here for a few days.  Much more mellow than the hustle and bustle of Havana.  After our cocktails, it was back on the bus for the long ride home in the sunset.

We still had one more day in Havana with time to go around the city on our own and then in the afternoon see a rehearsal of an Afro-Cuban dance troupe.

The Road to Vinales

Monday we had a road trip to Vinales, about two and a half hours west of Havana.  Vinales has some of the most spectacular scenery on the island.  Thirteen of us (including our group leaders and our wonderful Cuban photographer guides) climbed into an air-conditioned bus and sped off west through Havana's more middle class neighborhoods and the ritzy Miramar area.  We were heading to the Vinales valley through the Sierra de los Organos, a range of mountains in Northwest Pinar del Rio Province.   The whole valley has been designated a National Park.

 The mountains are called magotes (haystacks) and are the remains of a limestone plateau that rose from the sea millions of years ago.  Over the years, the rains and rivers have dissolved the limestone into butte like formations.

We did make a stop after about 90 minutes or so to a rest area with a little restaurant, clean bathrooms and a Pina Colada stand!!!

Senor Pina Colada would whip up a batch of the mixer in the blender, sprinkle a little cinnamon on it and then tell you to drink some of it before you poured in the rum.  There was a bottle of rum sitting right there.  It was great and I will have to experiment this summer to see if I can recapture the taste of the Cuban version.  There was also this fellow there making large pots out of palm tree trunks.

Our next stop before we hit the town of Vinales, was an overlook with an incredible view of the entire valley, best known for tobacco farming.  Apparently several of the tobacco farmers have realized that they can make a few extra bucks having touristas come out to their farms to shoot photos.  Why not?  It seems like a very win-win situation to me.

Valley view with drying house covered in thatch

The first farm we stopped at had a huge drying house.  The tobacco was carefully picked, then several leaves were tied together at the top of their stems and then the packet of leaves would be placed on a rod so that it would dry in the right humidity, which is regulated by opening and closing the doors of drying house.

One thing that was amazing was the smell of the tobacco.  It was almost too much for some of our photographers who didn't stay in the drying house very long.  The farmer also demonstrated how to hand roll a cigar.

We then went into the town for lunch.  We had lunch at this little paladar that was recommended by our guide.  But we were warned to just drink beer or soft drinks and nothing with ice in it.

In most of Havana, these signs are faded, but it looks like this got a paint job recently.

Then we wandered around the square a bit before getting in the bus again to visit a special tobacco production facility where the leaves are "marinated" and put through different degrees of humidity and the leaves are hand-sorted.  But that's the next post tomorrow.  But here's a short video clip of a band playing in the square.

And on Sunday, She Rested

It was supposed to be our only day off, so I was going to take advantage of that and finally sleep in!  Which I did until about 9:30 in the morning.  It was also the day I had planned to check out the National Museum of Cuban Art, which was only two blocks from our hotel.  There was also another National Art Museum whose collections include work from around the world, but I was interested in discovering Cuban artists. 

Detail of sculpture outside the International Art Museum.

The other museum is much newer having been recently remodeled by architect Jose Linares in 2009.

 

There is a large courtyard as you enter, and sculpture like this surrounding the open space.  Here is another piece of sculpture composed of those little metal espresso makers.

 

It's a massive place and I could have spent many hours there, but I thought when JK had left the hotel room in the morning, that we had agree to meet for lunch back at the hotel at 1 pm, so I only focused on an exhibit by modern Cuban artists of work from the 1980s.

I had just taken this shot of a wall mounted assemblage by Flavio Garciandia, when I was approached by one of the museum guards and told not to take photos of the work, but I could take photos of the ID cards.  Some of the artists whose work intrigued me included Leandro Soto, Jose Bedia, Ricardo Rodriguez Brey, Sandra Ramos Lorenzo and Consuelo Castaneda. 

What's disappointing to me is the lack of women artists in the museum.  One would think that since the country was communist, there would be more equal footing for the artistas.  No, it's still the same sexist bullshit as we see in museums in the US and Europe.  Guess it only shows that it doesn't matter what type of government you have, sexism is still endemic.   

 

This is the mural that I saw as I was leaving the building and then I spotted this public sculpture clinging to the side of the building.

 

Directly across the street, there was this odd, sort of outdoor museum of old planes.

Which turned out to be old US military equipment from the failed Bay of Pigs landing in front of the Museum of the Revolution.  But I thought I had a lunch date so went back to the hotel and waited around for 30 minutes and when JK didn't show up, Jude and I went to a nearby hotel.  Apparently JK had gone out on a morning shoot and then Nestor took him over to the Necropolis Cristóbal Colón.  I can't wait to see his photos from that jaunt.  

Later that evening, we slipped away from the rest of the group to have a little dinner on our own down in Cathedral Square.   Dinner wasn't that good there, but we were able to feed one of the little street dogs that haunt Havana streets.  More about that later.