“(I felt)…delirious yet tumultuous…I felt as if I sailed with Long John Silver and first gazed on Treasure Island. Here was a place where anything might happen. Here was a place where something would certainly happen. Here I might leave my bones.” ~Winston Churchill, on Havana, Cuba

by Christine Mason Miller

Of all my travels, there is only one country I have said good-bye to through tears:  Cuba. The morning of our departure, after having spent a mere eight days there, I sat in the lobby of our hotel fighting back tears. Once we were on our way to the airport, they spilled. There was something about this country that seeped into my bones, the same way it did for Churchill and Ernest Hemingway. “Here was a place where anything might happen. Here was a place where something would certainly happen.” Something happened, indeed. What happened is that I fell in love.

My time in Cuba inspired two bodies of mixed media work – dozens of creations on wood panels assembled with layers of turquoise, pale blues, and Coke bottle greens. Although most pieces are now scattered here and there, I still like the idea that there is this collection, a collection that represents a journal of sorts. To read these pieces is to get a glimpse of what moved me in Havana – of the colors that leapt out at me, the textures that stopped me in my tracks, the sights, sounds, and flavors of a country I still think about almost every day.

The piece pictured above was inspired by the ingenuity of the children I saw all over the streets of Havana. The picture is from a set of photos I purchased at an outdoor book market while I was there. These small photos were collectable in the 1940s and 50s; they came in boxes of cigarettes and were saved in wide albums with black covers. The list is from images I saw all over the city:

Broomstick = Bat
Bottle Cap = Baseball
Bubble Wrap = Wedding Veil
Street = Playground

All of these items were transformed into playthings, and the children were no less joyful, exuberant, and energized than if they had been brand new objects from Toys R Us. This is the spirit of Havana – transformation, collaboration, and substitution. Despite having so little, the warmth and creativity of all the people I met was genuine and boundless. The smiles were infectious, the music full of light. As an Artist, my work after that experience was to try to express and share this beauty, a task I happily accepted, an endeavor that is one of my most treasured.