The
Canadian-Cuban Printmaking Cultural Initiative of
Anna-Marie Larsen's One-Woman
Non-Governmental Organization
Anna-Marie Larsen is a freelance Canadian journalist and curator who is organizing a printmaking and handmade paper study tour to Cuba in December. We are all invited. This fascinating project was engendered last spring when Anne-Marie was on vacation in Cuba. But let's let her tell it in her own words.
(NB: In all fairness to Anna-Marie, this account of her Cuba project is extracted from a letter which was never intended for publication. On the other hand, we liked it very much for it's enthusiasm, sincerity and altruism. We think you will, too. The plane leaves from Toronto, the special price for World Printmakers is $838 yanqui dollars. There's even a back door open for American artists to attend (see below). What are you waiting for?)
In the Beginning...
"The genesis of the study tour rests with a trip I made last February to Santiago de Cuba and Holguin. During a downtown tour of Holguin, my friend Felchi took us to the print and paper studios. These are working studios -- you cannot find them in guidebooks the way you can, say, the conservatory, where tourists are encouraged to stop by. I bought a print (FABULOUS), chatted with some artists, saw some work that was - especially technically - quite astonishing, considering that all the equipment I could see looked to be pre-revolution or older. (You can characterize the maintenance philosophy of most of Cuba as 'jerry-rig and hope').
I'm still waiting for a list of what is in the studios, but I recall lithography & screen prints, as well as mono prints and woodblocks. In particular, I saw some woodblock work that is very accomplished. Artists are limited by the availability of materials, which is why, for example, you can wonder over what seems like an affinity for a blue-green palette in a body of work, even start thinking there's something symbolic going on, only to learn that there hasn't been any red ink around in six months. The print studios are quite large and airy. There's a courtyard with table and chairs, very inviting for socializing. Some but not all of the paper they work with is banana paper and I do not know the source of their other materials.
Cuban-Style Hospitality, Banana Paper
We tripped up the block to the paper studio and were given a tour by Jimmy, the
director. Paper there is made with banana fibre, and hung to dry on clotheslines
on the coarse cotton cloths they screen is couched to -- quite unlike the Japanese
methods I used to practice, and ditto for rag paper -- so it is actually quite
textured when dry. Apparently, they are able to remove enough cellulose when preparing
the fibre that the paper is considered acceptable from an archival perspective.
It is also sized though I have no information about the material used to size
it. The paper studio also does hand bookbinding and has a publishing sideline
whereby special editions of texts by local poets and writers are illustrated and
hand bound. Texts are printed using a wonderful antique letterpress, allegedly
the oldest in the Americas. You
see what these guys are up to and can't help but wonder what they would do if
they had some modern equipment.
 Paper
making in Holguin. |
On
Goes the Light!
The incident that made the whole thing 'gel' for
me happened at our next stop, at a church where Holguin artists were hanging a
group show. In chatting with one of them, he told me that it was very important
to get art books and magazines to them and, for me, the light switch hit the on
position. (This also explains why Felchi had been adamant that I leave the copy
Art in America I had been reading on the plane.) Cuban's are phenomenally literate
people, and while you can wag some very legitimate fingers at Castro for lots
of things, he also deserves credit for developing an education system that is
enviable, if you discount the fact that all ideas but Marxist ones are disallowed.
I mean, the literacy rate there is in something like the high 90 percentile, incredible
for a developing country. If you go in a library you will find beautiful musty
art books with deteriorating bindings; clearly none have been added since before
the revolution. So new information is precious.
And Miguel, it seems to me that the renaissance Cuban music is now experiencing is very much due to the closed nature of Cuban society - the music has in fact developed it's richness specifically because it has been left on it's own. No cross-pollination, if you will. But visual art has different needs and responds differently to social stimulus. Since the revolution, the incubator for art has been locked. In that context, the last abundant period of new ideas from outside was the fifties. Artists are so hungry for information and ideas that I actually feel that I'd be negligent as a caring person if I did not do something to help.
That's kinda it. I got home, told a few people that I had this idea about taking Canuck artists to Cuba, got some positive responses, decided to go for it. Because Canada's foreign policy is a pro-Cuban one and because so many Canadians travel to Cuba for winter sunshine there is a high level of interest and awareness in that country. Cuban music is very much in vogue here, though we know very little about their contemporary visual arts, or theatre or writing, for that matter. Because I've organized conferences and trips when I worked in galleries, I have been able to use that experience for this project.
The
Cuban Response
Response from my Cuban contacts was immediate and overwhelmingly positive. What
I have been very clear about from point one is that this is a trip that must benefit
both partners. I don't want to pop in with a group of artists who displace those
who work in these studios, so the Cuban authorities had to okay that level of
contact. (When you undertake any ventures like this, your partner is not the studio
but the Cuban gov't.) It's also why we are scheduling artist talks, studio visits
and collaborative opportunities. And why things like meals are arranged to be
shared by both groups of artists. Or that when we travel on studio/museum visits,
all the artists do this together.
So equitable contact and exchange of ideas has been, for me, a consistent part the negotiations I have undertaken. The Praga Press people found out about the trip because I put them on my mailing list for my first brochure, and they kindly asked if they could do a newsletter piece on it.
You then contact me via that newsletter piece. I'm doing this as part of my practice as a freelance curator and arts writer. I'm not going to make any money though I am hoping to have the costs of advertising, etc., recouped. I've priced the trip anticipating a minimum of eight artists to make it 'fly'. We can, however, easily accommodate twice that number. While I definitely need full payment before we go, I can arrange payment schedules if needed. In USD, the trip is $838. before Oct. 27 and $883 after."
 | A
Cuban pressman operates what is allegedly the oldest letterpress in the Americas. |
The
(Back) Door is Open for Americans
By the way, did you know that
Americans CAN enter Cuba without having their actual passport stamped? When you
give the custom's dude your passport, they slip a small piece of paper into it's
pages and stamp that so you can remove it before re-entering the States. Cubans
seem to LOVE doing this for obvious reasons - and they're fully cognizant of the
risks an American is under to visit Cuba, and, thus, pretty good about telling
them how much they appreciate the visit. The Americans I've met have flown from
Toronto or Montreal, or from cities in Mexico. This is the first trip of it's
type to Holguin and I've not heard of another like it ever going to Cuba, though
it's eminently possible that one has happened that I don't know about.
The artists that are going from here have been asked to take two pieces of their work for an exhibit that will hang while we are there at Centro de Arte, Sala Electa Arenal. Trust me, this will be a major event in Holguin and the show is going to receive a lot of attention. (I already know that that opening will be THE event of the season.) There is also going to be some sort of small public show of work made by artists while in Cuba, though I won't know anything about logistics/details for this until my November visit to the Biennale. Probably a one-day thing before we dash to the airport.
A
Special Offer for World Printmakers
Tell you what: I've set the
trip up so that those who register early will receive a small discount. Why not
post this with an add-on? Let's say something like, if you wish to register
after Oct. 27, and you mention that you learned about the trip on the World Printmakers
site, you pay the pre-deadline price, which is $838 US/$1398 Can. To make your
reservation just fire off an email to Anna-Marie
Larsen.
