Havana and Matanzas – Cuba. What do our work spaces say about who we are?
Several years ago, a management consultant to my employer at the time remarked at how sparsely decorated my office was. “Why don’t you have any personal photos on your desk?” he wanted to know. Young and puzzled by the question, I shrugged and mumbled something about the office being for work, not family. The consultant scribbled in his notepad. In hindsight, I can only imagine what the consultant must have inferred from my apparent reluctance to make my workspace my own.
I took memory of this experience with me on a recent visit to Cuba where I met with artists in their galleries and private studios. Peering into the work spaces of Cuba’s creatives felt, at once, intrusive, and oddly voyeuristic. I, too easily, became the giddy explorer scampering across paint splattered floors and among discarded canvases and barely dry brushes as though life had momentarily paused.
Each studio was like an interactive still-life and I found myself looking for clues about the artist who worked there. Each space was unique in terms of character and light, and some more ‘lived in” than others. The degree to which the work spaces reflected the personality of their owners and their relationship to their craft, I do not know. All, however, reflected the work produced in the space — like the dizzyingly colorful home and studio of Jose Fuster, the rustic warmth and high (at places, non-existing) ceilings of the studio of Osmany Betancourt Falcon, aka “Lolo,” and the ordered exhibit space of Frank Mujica Chavez, whose graphite drawings depict everyday street- and landscapes, and present a quiet and powerful counterpoint to the images and colors for which Havana is known. There was also a deliberateness to each space, as though, every item, despite the date of last use, served a purpose and belonged just where it sat. The work spaces not only reflected the work, but enabled and inspired the work.
I left the final studio visit determined to more intentionally create a space for my work and with a whimsically painted Jose Fuster tile in hand.
