Three Cuban Paintings Made by Mom’s Childhood Friend
Written by Teresita Blanco (The Artsy Sister)
Today, I decided to do something a little bit different. This is not to say that I am running out of fine art to show you. I can paint and draw many things. For the time being, I have been focusing on my children’s book project. I don’t want to show any finished pictures from the book till it gets published.
I have a real good feeling about. Anyhow, a couple of years ago, through the magic of Facebook mother got in contact again with a childhood friend. They were real tight when younger. She gave him his first terrible nickname, El Litro. This means the glass of milk. She was a mean kid.
He still whines about it from time to time. I know cause I tend to look over her shoulder from time to time, to see what she is talking about. Most of the time, it does not draw my attention. She does show me her phone when her friend is making a new painting.
At times, he asks her for possible titles for the paintings. She even gives a couple of color suggestions here and there. He usually goes along with it because mother has good tastes. Back when we had a little bit more money to spare, we got a couple of paintings from Mom’s painter friend, Elio Villate.
The feeling of owning a piece of artwork, made by a professional is an indescribable feeling. They really jazz up the living room. Mom got them at a discount, childhood friend price. The discount was so low, that framing the painting was actually more expensive.
We eventually got a different fellow to frame up the huge painting. It is the modality in the art world of today to make bigger, and better paintings. Each one of his work easily takes up an entire wall. The first painting we got from him was called Habana on Bicycle.
Almost everyone in Habana ride bikes. The reason why is something that outsiders only pretend to care about, so I am not going to bore you with pointless explanations. Villate has a bunch of different versions of the same painting. It is one that gets commissioned a lot.
He always does something different to it, because he is not a photocopier. He always paints Habana because he lives there on the top floor of a flat. He gets a real nice view from there. In the States, his paintings usually sell from between 20,000 and 30,000. In the art world, if you want to talk about Cuban art, you always have to mention the fellow.
The second painting I wanted to show you was called The Miracle of Chicken for Fish. The painting features La Menina of Diego Velazquez with a Chicken on her head. The chicken is going through a meat grinder and turning into gold fishes. The fishes were pretty well drawn, as well as the chicken with a couple of roosters. In the middle of the dress, one can find one of the currencies of Cuba.
The Spanish Princess is also ridding on bike wheels. For a time, Villate spoke with mother about what art movement he belongs to. He definitely falls under Surrealism, but the gears and the backwater technology belongs to the Steampunk era.
The appearance of Pop culture figures in some of his works also make him Pop Art. I should think that makes him a Steampunk Pop Surrealist painter. If you are good at what you do, then your artwork should not fall under a specific little defined box.
This would make you a very predictable, boring type of painter. You cannot call yourself Cuban, without being familiar with the artwork of Elio Villate. Aside from the main figures in the second painting, there are tiny details here and there. At the foot of La Menina, there is a mini landscape of the Cuban pier. He painted himself fishing outside of the frame.
He claims he painted mother towards the left of the pier, looking towards the viewer. When he knew her, she had curly, short hair, cause she thought it looked cute. This is how he painted her, or so he claims. This painting in specific is unique because the first version of it was stolen. The first Miracle of Chicken for Fish painting was stolen by the UPS guy.
It did not make it to the States, and it was a real shame. The painter was forced to give the client 3 paintings at discount price. If you ask me, the client probably pretended that the painting did not make it to stiff Villate. There are douches like that in the world, who think they are so smart at life, but they will get what they deserve, through the awesome power of Karma or something. I am only saying this because I am still peeved at Ebay.
I once sold a Pokemon Card on Ebay, and then the douche claimed the card did not arrived, and then Ebay took my money. There is just no seller protection in that website. It is much safer to run your own store, and avoid that platform all together. Anyhow, back to the painting.
While Villate was telling this story to mother, she asked him to remake it again. Villate recreated the painting, with some changes to differentiate it from the original. The one that was lost was red, but ours has a blue background. There are other minor changes here and there, but those are the only ones worth mentioning.
The last painting worth mentioning is called Once Upon an Ostrich. There is a good chance he will pretend not to have painted it. A year ago, there was a big fuzz about a Cuban minister or general wanting Cubans to eat ostrich instead of chicken. Due to all the internet memes about ostriches, Elio Villate decided to take a whack at the silly bird.
He then painted this maiden ridding the ostrich. Most Cuban maidens are like the caricature maiden of this painting. The Cubans of yonder times were not fuzzy about their mates, so they are pretty well blended as far as race is concerned. We had a different cultural history as far as slavery is concerned.
The Cimarrones or escape slaves fought the Spaniards and won their freedom. They did not need the white man to free them. Eventually, the descendants of the African slaves were also key in the fight for Cuba’s independence from the Spaniards. I don’t want to continue with the history of Cuba.
If you are curious, go read a book or something. You came here to see and learn about the pretty painting. The maiden has a fish on top of her head. This means that she must pretend to be eating fish, when she is served ostrich. The reason for the fish shortage is pointless to talk about, since you folks really do not care.
If you note, the dress of the girl has the F of Facebook mixed in there. From beneath the ostrich feather there is a hand with three different types of currencies. Every couple of years, Cuba makes a new currency with less value than the previous one. The last detail worth noting is the pin on the mouth of the bird. Originally, Villate got worried when he painted it.
His wife probably asked him if he wanted to go to jail or something. He eventually covered it up with an umbrella. When mother saw the photo of the finished version she whined about the missing safety pin. She said she would not buy the ostrich without the pin on the mouth. Villate painted it again, this time making the pin on the mouth bigger.
The meaning of the safety pin is pretty obvious and not worth talking about. It is all for one’s own safety after all. There is no point in speaking of an issue that nobody truly cares to do anything about. I think this is enough about the paintings themselves.
I am going to talk about the materials used to make the painting. The canvas is a brand-less, custom made fabric for Villate’s paintings. The back of it comes with a stamp of approval or a sticker. Any of his paintings without the stamp is contraband or a fake, unless if they have a paper from the minister or something or other. The painting was done with acrylics, mainly Winsor and Newton. He likes that brand a lot.
Like Britto, his paintings are also in mugs and other merchandise. Everything related to Cuba is complicated, so there is no chance you will ever be able to buy any merchandize of the fellow in Artsy Sister. So, get those silly thoughts out of your head. Why is it complicate? Well, because of the safety pin. I think this is about it as far as these three paintings are concerned.
I have another painting too, and a bunch of prints. I am going to get around to explaining those eventually. For the time being, enjoy these three Cuban paintings. If you want to get your own painting from the fellow, go check out his Facebook or his website. He is not really hard to find. By buying his work, you are not only helping out a fellow, but also his family, and his family’s family. Seriously, the poor man is the only guy who works in that household.
