Monday, July 19, 2021

Educating Nikole Hannah-Jones

New York Times journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, the leader of that paper's controversial 1619 Project recently showed a spectacular lack of background knowledge on the Cuban dictatorship's well-documented racist history and abuses of its black population by her statement that If you want to see the most equal, multiracial democ … it’s not a democracy — the most equal, multiracial country in our hemisphere, it would be Cuba,” and then proceeding to cite socialism as her reason to make the statement.

Ms. Hannah-Jones' rosy-eyed view of the Marxist dictatorship's oppression of its citizens, especially its black citizens not only reveal loads about her own political leanings, but also serves as a brilliant example of suspicious lack of research skills about a subject as widely discussed as Cuba's oppressive and racist government.

Had Ms. Hannah-Jones - who visited Cuba in 2008 - bothered to look past her clear admiration for the Marxist government, and bothered to take a quick tour of the facts, she would have discovered that much has been written and documented about racism in Cuba, and it was even one of the earliest subjects addressed by the Washington Post's Eugene Robinson upon his arrival to the DMV a few decades ago from his various Latin American postings.

In his article a couple of decades ago, Cuba Begins to Answer Its Race Question, Robinson, also clearly and openly a very extreme left-wing oriented writer, tried hard to find excuses for the dictatorship, but nonetheless admits that:
Academics say that black Cubans are failing to earn university degrees in proportion to their numbers--a situation to which Castro has alluded publicly. The upper echelons of the government remain disproportionately white, despite the emergence of several rising black stars. And while perceptions are difficult to quantify, much less prove true or false, many black Cubans are convinced that they are much less likely than whites to land good jobs--and much more likely to be hassled by police on the street, like Cano's husband, in a Cuban version of "racial profiling."
But how about some Cubans inside Cuba discussing the subject?
In primary [Cuban] education, skin color is not mentioned," ... If we are still living in a society where white people have the power, and we don't mention color in education, we are in practice educating [Cuban] children to be white.

Cuban history as we teach it is a disgrace, because it is predominantly white history, and explaining the role of black people and mulattoes in building this society and its culture is not given its due importance.

Esteban Morales
University of Havana
Centre for the Study of the Hemisphere and the United States
A lot of hopes have been pinned by many people (who know little about Cuba and the repressive nature of its government) on President Obama's monumental decision to re-establish diplomatic relations with the unfortunate Caribbean island prison of Cuba; but first another Cuban quote:
...to carry on "hiding" the issue [of racism in Cuba] would lead black people to think that "they belong to another country, and that there are two Cuba’s as there were in the 19th century, a black Cuba and a white one."

Roberto Zurbano
Director
Casa de las Américas publishing house
Havana
And thus, it is curious to me that in his attempt to re-establish diplomatic ties, our socially conscious President (and his cadre of advisors) back then also - like Ms. Hannah-Jones - appeared to know little or nothing about the way that Afro-Cuban citizens are treated in their own country.

In reference to the President's visit to Cuba, 
Odette Casamayor-Cisneros, an associate professor of Latin American and Caribbean literatures and cultures at the University of Connecticut and a scholar at Harvard University, and writing in Ms. Hannah-Jones own newspaper, noted in the New York Times that  
“The images of the meetings, the agreements, they’re all shameful for many black Cubans — I’m including myself in this — because it’s difficult to feel represented.
Was the projected flow of American tourists expected to help black Cubans in a pre-COVID Cuba? Roberto Zurbano, a Cuban expert in Afro-Cuban identity, race and literature based out of Havana wrote in his 2013 New York Times article that:
Most remittances from abroad — mainly the Miami area, the nerve center of the mostly white exile community — go to white Cubans. They tend to live in more upscale houses, which can easily be converted into restaurants or bed-and-breakfasts — the most common kind of private business in Cuba. Black Cubans have less property and money, and also have to contend with pervasive racism. Not long ago it was common for hotel managers, for example, to hire only white staff members, so as not to offend the supposed sensibilities of their European clientele.
Zurbano was subsequently punished by his Marxist government for daring to express that opinion on the pages of Ms. Hannah-Jones employing newspaper. Because that's how Communists roll!

That "not long ago" is still the case, as anyone who has been to Cuba recently can testify to and which Ms. Hannah-Jones could clearly see during her 2008 visit to the island - it is very rare to see a black face in any of Havana's "tourist only" hotels and nearby beaches. Discussing those lucrative jobs, Yusimí Rodríguez López, an Afro-Cuban independent journalist, said in a 2016 New York Times article that there were job listings in Revolico — sometimes called Cuba’s underground Craigslist — “where they say they only want whites.”

In the same NYT article we read:
“They talk a lot here about discrimination against blacks in the United States. What about here?” said Manuel Valier Figueroa, 50, an actor, who was in the park on Monday. “If there’s a dance competition, they’re going to choose the woman who is fair-skinned with light, good hair. If there’s a tourism job, the same.”

He added: “Why are there no blacks managing hotels? You don’t see any blacks working as chefs in hotels, but you see them as janitors and porters. They get the inferior jobs.”
One would hope that Ms. Hannah-Jones' exploration of Cuba, a nation with one of the world's worst human rights records, where Amnesty International has been denied access to (except to that bit of Cuba where the Guantanamo Naval Base is located); a nation where gay people were once given lobotomies to "cure" them; and where HIV+ Cubans were detained and segregated in guarded colonies away from the general public, could at least have educated her on the disturbing status of blacks in their own island nation.

Fact: Twice as many African slaves were brought to Cuba than to the United States... twice!

And what really bugs me, in my own pedantic hell, is how often historically and socially clueless American academics, journalists, activists, etc. make spectacularly ignorant statements - as Ms. Hannah-Jones did - about the government of one of the world's most racist dictatorships (a government which talks a talk of equality while walking a walk of institutionalized racism against its own black population) without even mentioning the issue of racism... or is Ms. Hannah-Jones' case praising the socialist dictatorship!

Ms. Hannah-Jones should learn about the Cuban version of the 1619 Project, which in Cuba's case would have been called the 1511 Project, as that was when Spanish Conquistador Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar set out from Hispaniola to establish the first Spanish settlement in Cuba, and brought the first African slaves to the island.

Since then and to its present day, Cuba has a long and agonizing history of racial issues, starting with its long bloody history of slavery, which didn't end on the island until 1886, and continuing through its freedom from Spain, birth of the Republic, and the triumph of the Castro Revolution in 1959. It continues to this day.

Cuba even had its own race war.

Antonio Maceo

General Antonio Maceo, known as "the Bronze Titan." He was the true warrior leader of the Cuban Wars of Liberation. His father was white of French ancestry; his mother was black, of Dominican ancestry. After the first Cuban Liberation War ended in a truce with Spain, some say that Maceo was so disillusioned with the realities of life in Cuba as a black man, that he left Cuba and lived in Panama, until he was called back to lead the Cuban rebels in a new rebellion in 1895. He returned to Cuba and was killed in battle against the Spanish Army in 1896.

In 1912, Black Cubans in Oriente province had enough of the new Cuban government's racist practices and the degrading treatment of Cuban black veterans, who had been the bulk of the Cuban rebels in the wars of independence against Spain. The Cuban government moved on a path of genocide and eventually the United States had to send in troops to end the war between the white Cuban government and the black rebels in Oriente.

As I recall from the CIA Factbook of 1959, on that year the island was about 70% white, about 20% black and mixed, and the rest Chinese, Jewish and other. The Cuban Diaspora which started a few months after the Castro takeover and continues to this day, with the exception of the Mariel boat lift of the 1980s, saw a mass exodus of mostly white Cubans, and as a result the island's racial balance shifted dramatically and although 65% of Cubans self-identify as white in recent censuses, many experts estimate that today the island is actually about 60% black or biracial.

But Cuba's black population has not seen a proportionate share of the power and a quick review of the governing Politburo/Parliament reveals few black faces in the crowd. 

In fact, "the Cuban cultural journal Temas published studies by the governmental Anthropology Centre in 2006 that showed that on average, the black population has worse housing, receives less money in remittances from abroad and has less access to jobs in emerging economic sectors like tourism, in which blacks represent barely five percent of managers and professionals, than the white population."
"I think silence is worse. The longer nothing is said, the more the racism fermenting underground is rotting the entire nation..."

Gerardo Alfonso
singer/songwriter
Havana
While the Cuban constitution of the 1940s (since then abolished by the Communist government) outlawed segregation and racism on paper, and the current Cuban Constitution guarantees black Cubans the right to stay in any hotel and be served at any public establishment, as it has been documented by many foreign journalists, black Cubans will tell you in private that those rights exist only on paper. They would have told Ms. Hannah-Jones during her visit to Cuba in 2008 - but she probably didn't notice that nearly everywhere that she visited, the presence of the Cuban government was not far, and people fear that presence.

The harsh Cuban reality today, Black Cubans will tell you, is that "black Cubans won't be served" and that Cubans, regardless of race are in general barred from places frequented by tourists.
Unfortunately, these things [disparities in the treatment of blacks and whites] are very common in Cuba.

Ricardo Alarcón Quesada
President of the National Assembly of People's Power
Cuban Parliament
Do these Cuban voices from within Cuba itself sound like the subjects of a government whose murdering tyrants' atrocities should be dealt with in silence? -- especially in view of our nation's own racial history and what Ms. Hannah-Jones so expeditiously attempted to document in her controversial 1619 Project? 
We have practically apartheid in this country sometimes... racism is deeply rooted in Cuba's history and will not disappear overnight.

Rogelio Polanco Fuentes
Director
Cuban Communist Party-owned Juventud Rebelde newspaper.
What would she say if she had discovered the "permanent and shameful police harassment of young Cubans of African descent in our streets..." as noted by Leonardo Calvo Cardenas, the Cuban National Vice-Coordinador of the Citizens' Committee for Racial Integration (Comité Ciudadanos por la Integración Racial (CIR))?

As Omar López Montenegro, the Black Cuban director of Human Rights for the Fundación Nacional Cubano Americana recently stated in the Panama Post:
The situation for Black Cubans worsened after Castro assumed power... even though there were always racial issues, before Castro in Cuba there had been Black governors, a President of the Senate, Martín Morua Delgado, and also many Congressmen such as the labor leader Jesús Menéndez, a member of the Socialist Party. 

When Cuba became a Communist dictatorship, and democracy was lost, the advance of Black Cubans came to a halt. 

And this is what makes it even more maddening to a pedantic Virgo like me -- when even the lackeys of the Cuban dictatorship like Alarcon Quesada and black voices from within the brutalized island speak out, knowing that there will be consequences - as Zurbano discovered after his New York Times opinion piece - why does Ms. Hannah-Jones live in this rose-colored atmosphere where she perceives the poor jailed island as an example of equality?

Does she know that even though about 60% of Cubans are Black or brown, that 94.2% of the students at the University of Havana are white?  Is she aware - as evidenced by the hundreds of videos one can see at #SOSCuba, that the epicenters of the demonstrations in most Cuban cities during this historic uprising are in the Black neighborhoods? Does she know about Diubis Laurencio Tejeda, a young Black Cuban from La Güinera who was arrested and then murdered by the Cuban police? When notified that her son was dead, his mother committed suicide. Does she know that her own newspaper, The New York Times documented a few years ago how Black Cubans are routinely discriminated in Cuba? Is she aware that while 48% of white Cubans have an annual income of less that $3,000 USD, a whooping 95% of Black Cubans fall below that incredible line?

By the way... In 1959 Cuba had the third-highest per capita income in Latin America, exceeded only by Argentina and Venezuela (around $550 a year back then which is about $5,170 in today's dollars). In 1959 that was also higher than Italy, Japan, Ireland, Spain, and Portugal and every single Eastern European nation in the Soviet bloc.

Nikole Hannah-Jones now has an opportunity to clear the air, clear her mind, clear her perception and gain instant respect from Cubans of all races. All she has to say is that she's learned a lot since the statements that she made in 2019 surfaced during the current Cuban uprising - which as video evidence clearly shows, appears to involve Cubans of all races - and state that she was wrong and is now aware of the sorry and sad state of the Marxist government's deeply rooted racism.

Boom! Case closed.

Sunday, July 18, 2021

They will not be forgotten!

 

Xaviel Álvarez García, 18 years old, from Ciego de Avila was arrested on the first day of the historic Cuban uprising against their Communist oppressors and has been behind bars since then and his family has not been allowed to see him. He will not be forgotten!

Father Rafael Cruz Debora is a priest from Matanzas who was arrested on the first day of the historic Cuban uprising against the Marxist yoke. He will not be forgotten!

Omar Odin Planos Cordoví from Santiago de Cuba was arrested on the first day of the historic Cuban uprising and remains behind bars! He will not be forgotten!

Melissa López Campos, together with her husband Jhon Alejandro del Toro - both from Holguin were arrested on the first day of the historic Cuban uprising and are still behind bars. They will not be forgotten!

Mackyanis Román Rodríguez from La Guinera was arrested on 12 July during the historic Cuban uprising, together with her brothers Yosney and Emiyolan. Thay are all still behind bars and none of them will be forgotten!

Saturday, July 17, 2021

Where are they?

I know that some of them have already spoken out (like Pitbull)... but we need our Cuban-American celebs to step out and support the Cuban uprising! Gloría Estefan, Jeff Bezos, Camilla Cabello, Andy Garcia, Cameron Diaz, William Levy, Dara Torres, Ryan Lochte, Bella Thorne, Maria Teresa (the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg), and many more!



#SOSCuba #Cuba #cubalibre

Friday, July 16, 2021

United Nations

 


Thursday, July 15, 2021

The People's Choice! VOTE!!!!

As many of you know, I have a work in The Phillips Museum DC exhibition 'Inside Outside Upside Down;'  It is a super important art exhibition celebrating the museum's 100th anniversary! They have just sent out a note with People's Choice Award voting platform found here:

https://insideoutside.phillipscollection.org/link/peopleschoiceaward 

Vote for your favorite work with 1-5 stars

 My work is "Suddenly, She Discovered Her Identity (Many of Them)"

"Suddenly, She Discovered Her Identity (Many of Them)"



Wednesday, July 14, 2021

She will not be forgotten!


Neife Rigau has been arrested during the historic Cuban uprising against their Marxist dictators and her family has not been able to see her since. She will not be forgotten!

#SOSCuba #11J

Monday, July 12, 2021

Daily Campello Welcomes New DC Arts Commission Chairperson

Reggie Van Lee was officially sworn as chairperson of the DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities on Thursday, July 1, 2021. Chairperson Van Lee was appointed to the position by Mayor Muriel Bowser for a three-year term, with subsequent reappointments possible.

“It truly is an honor to be appointed chairperson of the arts commission by Mayor Bowser,” said Chairperson Van Lee. “Every DC resident should have the opportunity to access the full spectrum of arts and cultural offerings available in the District, and I look forward to helping the Commission continue its work to make that a reality.”

The Commission is an independent agency in the District of Columbia government that evaluates and initiates action on matters relating to the arts and humanities and encourages programs and the development of programs that promote progress in the arts and humanities. The Commission consists of 18 members appointed by the Mayor with the advice and consent of the DC Council, who serve without compensation.

In 2020, Van Lee chaired the Commission’s Task Force on Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging, which produced a report of 44 recommendations aimed at improving the Commission’s operations and improving access and transparency.

“There is a tremendous amount of knowledge, expertise, and talent amongst the staff and commissioners. Chairperson Van Lee will add to and enhance those abilities with his own, to the ultimate benefit of the District’s arts and cultural sector and our residents,” said Arts Commission Executive Director Heran Sereke-Brhan.

Van Lee is a Partner and Chief Transformation Officer of The Carlyle Group where he helps the firm develop strategies to enhance business processes. He previously served for 32 years as an executive at Booz Allen Hamilton. He has served on the boards of local arts organizations such as The Washington Ballet, Washington Performing Arts, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.

Sunday, July 11, 2021

Cubans are on the street!

The internet is ablaze with the news that for the first time (at least in my memory) there are widespread protests in Cuba - the shouts are for "Libertad" which means "freedom."

The Marxist dictators are sure to react with a bloody reprisal - let's pray for these brave men, women and children on the streets of that poor brutalized island!

"Isla Herida" 1980 F. Lennox Campello Original Watercolor In a private collection in Coral Gables, FL
"Isla Herida"
1980 F. Lennox Campello
Original Watercolor
In a private collection in Coral Gables, FL

And here's a new flag for the uprising! A take-off on the 26th of July flag - this one has the colors of the Cuban flag (Red, White and Blue).  The red stripe is slightly larger than the blue, in honor of the blood being spilled on the streets of Cuba.  The "11J" in white is for 11 July!

11 July Movement Cuban Uprising flag - designed by Campello
11 July Uprising Flag
by Florencio Lennox Campello


Monday, July 05, 2021

The Morrigan

The Morrigan - 2021 by F. Lennox Campello

New for 2021 - a return to one of my obsessions! This is "The Morrigan" - she's the Celtic goddess of War, Lust and Sex. About 4.5 inches by 4.5 inches, charcoal, conte and a tiny bit of green watercolor for her Celtic eyes. Frame made from one of the nine holy woods of a Celtic bonfire.

Saturday, July 03, 2021

Punk Lincoln

"Punk Lincoln", circa 1981, Charcoal and conte on paper, 12x16 inches - an art assignment from the University of Washington School of Art (for a portrait assignment).

Punk Lincoln - by Lennox Campello circa 1981, Charcoal and conte on paper, 12x16 inches - an art assignment from the University of Washington School of Art (for a portrait assignment).
Punk Lincoln
Florencio Lennox Campello circa 1981
Charcoal and conte on paper, 12x16 inches 

Monday, June 28, 2021

Burundanga explained

Here's the whole logic to this song:

Songo hit Borondongo because Borondongo had hit Bernabe... And Borondongo did that because Bernabe had hit Muchilanga... why? 

Because Muchilanga had used Burundanga (the toxic drug) to make Bernabe's feet swell up!!! 

Cough... cough...


Thursday, June 24, 2021

Paint It! Ellicott City Award Winners Announced

Landscape painters from around the Mid-Atlantic region gathered in Historic Ellicott City June 10-13, dodging raindrops and cicadas while competing for cash prizes during Paint It! Ellicott City 2021, the Howard County Arts Council’s annual plein air paint-out. 

A virtual reception on June 18 featured a sneak peek at the Paint It! Ellicott City 2021 exhibition, featuring 27 juried artists; a look at the Open Paint exhibit, featuring 41 community artists; and the presentation of more than $9,000 in awards to the artists.   


Juror Lynn Mehta presented the $1,000 Gino Awards, named in honor of Ellicott City artist Gino Manelli (1915-2010), to Rajendra KC for Little Market Café and Michael Kotarba for Water Like Wine. 

Juror awards also went to:  

  • 2nd Place, $900 – Erin Pryor Gill, Rainy Day at Frederick Rd. 
  • 3rd Place, $800 – Marita Hines, Flowers for Sale 
  • 4th Place, $700 – Nishita Jain, Trolley Trail Walk 
  • 5th Place, $600 – Christine Rapa, A Sunday Kind of Love 
  • Honorable Mentions, $150 each – Tom Ritchie, Rainy Day Lunch Bunch; J. Stacy Rogers, Down Main Street; Bruno Baran, Through a Rainy Windshield: Babe Ruth’s Church; and Kathleen Kotarba, Built to Last. 

The Arts Council’s 40th Anniversary Award, $400, went to Jane Knighton for Peaceful Pond.  

The Patapsco Heritage Greenway Award of $500 for Best Depiction of the Patapsco River was presented to Kathleen Gray Farthing for Rush

Howard County Blossoms of Hope’s Award for Best Depiction of Nature, $500, went to Nishita Jain for Trolley Trail Walk

AARP Maryland’s Juried Artist Award, $500, went to Amanda Milliner for Meet Me at the Café. 

Awards were also presented to the Open Paint Artists:  
  • AARP Maryland Open Paint Award, $500 – Moonjoo Lee, Where Reflection Lies 
  • HCAC Director’s Choice 40th Anniversary Open Paint Award - Ronaldo Dorado, Running Wild  
  • HCAC Director’s Choice Honorable Mentions, $50 each – Barbara Kern-Bush, Ellicott City Fire House and Collin Cessna, Chalks on Main Street  
  • Young Artist Award, $25 - Henry Kigin, Mr. Blue House 
  • Carole Zink Open Paint Award, $100 – Andrea Naft, Reunion in Ellicott City 

Paint It! awards were made possible through the generous support of these sponsors: The Manelli Family, AARP of Maryland, Blossoms of Hope, Patapsco Heritage Greenway, and the Family of Carole Zink. 

 

Paint It! Ellicott City 2021, the exhibit featuring the juried artists’ work, remains on display at the Howard County Arts Council through August 7.  The Open Paint exhibit will be on display at the Howard County Welcome Center through July 24. Both exhibits are also available to view online via the Current Exhibits section at hocoarts.org/galleries. 

Wednesday, June 23, 2021

Torpedo Factory artists new presence on Facebook

Check out their new footprint on Facebook!

Click here.

Sunday, June 20, 2021

Isla Judia

This is "Isla Judia", circa 1981, watercolor on 180 weight paper, done while I was a student at the University of Washington School of Art.

It honors Cubans of Jewish ancestry. While legend has it that the first Jews arrived with the early Spanish settlers, and Jews have always migrated to Cuba in the past, the bulk of the Jewish migration to Cuba was in the early 20th century, as they escaped persecution of Jews from the Ottoman empire in the early 1920s, and later from Europeans before and during the Second World War, with immigrants arriving mostly from Germany and Poland. By 1959 there were 15,000 Jews in Havana alone, and there were five active synagogues in the city.

After the brutal Communist takeover, nearly all Cuban Jews escaped, and now estimates show only about 1500 Jewish Cubans left on the island.

"Isla Judia (Jewish Island)" 1981 Watercolor on paper by F. Lennox Campello
"Isla Judia (Jewish Island)"
1981 Watercolor on paper by F. Lennox Campello

This is the preparatory sketch for the final work as I did 3-4 prep watercolors before doing a large painting.

"Isla Judia (Jewish Island)" 1981 Ink and Watercolor on paper by F. Lennox Campello


Friday, June 18, 2021

Call for Artists - Essex Gateway Sculpture Artwork

Any and all Maryland artists are invited to submit work for the new Essex Gateway Sculpture, a public outdoor display featured at the entrance to the new Essex Gateway Park. This sculpture will be viewed by over 30,000 people who drive through Essex daily, and it will be the centerpiece to the new public space. The chosen work will be displayed in the four panels of the sculpture. All works submitted will be exhibited in a curated show and press event at the Heritage Society of Essex and Middle River.

DESCRIPTION: The work will be four panels set as a four-sided column. The panels will consist of translucent UV resistant LEXAN and will be backlit in the evenings and at night. Applicants must keep in mind the properties of the final installation and be mindful of the light elements. The themes of the work can reflect Maryland as a whole, Maryland water life, Maryland watershed and Chesapeake Bay revival, and a focus on past and future of Essex, [attractions, industry, water culture]. For further information on Essex, please contact the Heritage Society of Essex and Middle River email: essexmuseum@gmail.com or visit http://www.essexmuseum.com/ (Guided tour times may vary due to COVID-19). You also may want to visit the Essex Branch of the Baltimore County Public Library.

DEADLINE: August 9th, 2021

SIZE: The final product will be 20-25’ by 5’ vertical. Each concept must be formatted to fit these dimensions once scaled.

APPLICATIONS: Mail applications to: Essex Gateway Sculpture, c/o Chesapeake Gateway Chamber of Commerce, 405 Williams Court, Suite 108, Middle River, MD 21220. Though we would prefer physical copies to be sent in, we can accept digital works (info@chesapeakechamber.org). All formats will be accepted. Included in the application and sent work should be an artist bio and artist statement alongside the applicant's name and address.

SELECTION CRITERIA: Only artists native to or based in Maryland may apply; however, there are no other limiting factors, all skill levels and backgrounds are welcome. Subject matter and representation or reflection of Essex is paramount, but the five main considerations are creativity, thematic appropriateness, use of color and space, readability, and clarity of design. Selection will be performed by a juried panel sourced from across Maryland.

HONORARIUM: $1,200 will be awarded across winning selections, and all participants will be honored in a curated show installed at the Heritage Society of Essex and Middle River.

Contact Chesapeake Gateway Chamber of Commerce for further information – info@chesapeakechamber.org, 443-317-8763.

Tuesday, June 15, 2021

My picks for Paint It! Ellicott City 2021

 As June arrives, I’m beginning to think that perhaps the Covidian monster has been tamed, art fairs are desperately seeking galleries to apply to show, the DMV’s outdoor art festivals are returning, and brushes, pens and pencils continued to be applied to paper or canvas. Notice that I did not mention cicadas or Brood X or none of that 17-year nonsense that feeds other papers’ pages these day.

Restaurants, museums, bars, and libraries are allegedly open, except in Montgomery County, where Kommissar Marc Elrich curiously has kept his iron boot on the throat of the county’s attempts to come back to life… and most libraries remain closed

Plein Air painting has always been a refreshing genre of art production, and our area boasts some of the best plein air painting events, perhaps none better than the one held in Easton, but one a bit closer to the DMV and just as good is and a lot closer is the one in Ellicot City.

In that annual event, artists from around the region gather in Ellicott City – this year the weekend of June 10-13 -- for Paint It! Ellicott City 2021.

This year, the Howard County Arts Council (HCAC) and Visit Howard County have partnered to host this paint-out weekend culminating in an exhibit of 30 juried artists at the Howard County Center for the Arts.

The guest juror for Paint It! Ellicott City 2021 is award-winning landscape artist Lynn Mehta, who selected the following artists for the juried exhibit: Lissa Abrams, Bruno Baran, Pamela Betts, Julia Bowden, Cathy Cole, Shawn Costello, Ann Crostic, David Drown, Vlad Duchev, Kathleen Gray Farthing, Kathleen Ryan Gardiner, Erin Gill, Marita Hines, Nishita Jain, Rajendra KC, Jane Knighton, Kathleen Kotarba, Michael Kotarba, Laura Martinez-Bianco, Michael McSorley, Amanda Milliner, Christine Rapa, Tom Ritchie, J. Stacy Rogers, Duane Sabiston, Maggii Sarfaty, Stacey Sass, Lida Stifel, Nancy Thomas, and Nancy Van Meter.

The event begins with a virtual Welcome Reception & Event Kick-Off via Zoom on Wednesday, June 9 at 4pm. Then, all day on June 10-13, artists will set up their easels throughout Ellicott City’s historic district to capture the picturesque charm of the beloved mill town. Members of the public are invited to watch the artists at work from a safe distance while strolling Main Street. Artists and art students from the community can also be part of the fun by participating in the Open Paint-Out, which takes place concurrently. Artwork created during the Open Paint-Out will be featured in a temporary exhibit at the Visit Howard County Welcome Center on Main Street.

A virtual reception on Friday, June 18 from 6-7pm will include an award ceremony for the exhibit of juried artists’ work. More than $7,000 in awards will be presented, including the coveted Gino Awards, two $1,000 cash prizes named in honor of artist Gino Manelli and presented by the Manelli Famil

Other awards include a $500 award sponsored by Patapsco Heritage Greenway, a $500 award by Blossoms of Hope, and a $150 Open Paint award sponsored by the Family of Carole Zink.

Registration is required for those wishing to be included in the Open Paint-Out exhibit. Registration is available at the Arts Council and online at hocoarts.org/paint-it before and during the event.

Awright… you didn’t think that was all… did you? Here what I’m gonna do now: even though this event hasn’t happened as my talented hand type this column, I’m gonna take the extraordinary risk of looking at some of these artists’ online footprint and pick out a few faves.

Kathleen Kotarba’s online presence shows me an artist who really understands the powerful effect which light can deliver at the hands of a talented artist. Her paintings are infused with the ever fluid colors of light at different times of the day, as it touches grass, wood, flowers, trees, people.

Laura Martinez-Bianco is also formidably armed with those same skills as well as a very advanced ability to capture the nuances of light on water and the living nature of water itself. This talented artist also knows her composition, and is one of my favorites to win the top prize at Ellicot City.

Duane Sabiston also stood apart. I like the manner in which his brush takes chances with bold statements in seriously contrasted painting areas within the canvas.

J. Stacy Rogers is another artist who will win an award; enviable technical skill, an eye for the unusual in the landscape and a limitless ability to interpret what most of us “see” when we look at color.

Who else did I like online? Rajendra KC can paint weather variations in the atmosphere with astonishing loose detail! Do not be fooled… only a master can do that.

Nancy Van Meter will also win a prize, maybe the top prize; she’s a professional with almost supernatural talent.

I admire the way in which Maggii Sarfaty goes on trying different things and ways and manners to deliver her art! That is a courageous (and enviable) sign of artistic courage that most artists lack. Sarfaty will not fall into the trap of getting comfortable with any success – she will then knock on another artistic barrier and knock it down. Of all the artists in this event, her work is the one that I am looking the most to discover.

Sunday, June 13, 2021

Grandsonator!


 

Saturday, June 05, 2021

This is what being a Cuban is like (Cuban Transformation Machine)

This is a piece that I did in art school in 1981: I cut out the shape of Cuba from a blue acrylic wash paper, then affixed it to a mirror and put bars (pins and needles) so than when anyone sees their reflection on the work, it is seen as behind bars. It is a prototype (I did 4-5 of them) for a larger piece that I have in storage somewhere. 4x4 inches. 


It is titled: "This is what being a Cuban is like (Cuban Transformation Machine)."

This is what being a Cuban is like (Cuban Transformation Machine) - 1981 mixed media by Florencio Lennox Campello
This is what being a Cuban is like (Cuban Transformation Machine)
1981 mixed media by Florencio Lennox Campello


This is what being a Cuban is like (Cuban Transformation Machine) - 1981 mixed media by Florencio Lennox Campello
This is what being a Cuban is like (Cuban Transformation Machine)
1981 mixed media by Florencio Lennox Campello

Friday, June 04, 2021

Remembering a powerful woman

Five years ago my courageous mother died... this is my eulogy from that day:
When my father died last year, I began his eulogy by noting that another oak had fallen.

This morning, around 1:25AM, Ana Olivia Cruzata Marrero de Campello, his wife of over 60 years, and my beloved mother, passed on on the day of her 97th birthday.

If my father was an oak, then my mother was an equally strong, but also very pliable, and elegant tree.  When hurricanes attack the main lands of the world, the strong tall trees often fall, but the pliable ones, like plantain trees, always give with the wind, and survive the storms, and thrive in the drenching rains.

My mother was like a an aged plantain tree, not only immensely strong and pliable, but also giving and nurturing.

Like many Cuban women of her generation and her social-economic background, she had never worked for a living in Cuba, and yet within a few days of our arrival in New York in the 1960s, she was working long hours in a sewing factory, putting her formidable seamstress skills, honed in the social sewing and embroidery gathering of young Cuban girls, to use in the "piece work" process of the New York sewing factories.

As soon as we saved the money, one of the first things that my mother bought was an electric sewing machine - a novelty to her, as she had always used one of the those ancient Singer machines with a foot pedal.

I remember as a child in Brooklyn, that women used to bring her fabric and a page from a magazine with a woman wearing a dress. Without the benefit of a sewing pattern, my mother would whip up a copy of the dress that was more often than not probably better made than the original. As the word of her skills spread, so did her customers and soon she was making more money working at home than at the factory - but she kept both jobs.

I once noted to her that I admired the courage that it must have taken  her to leave her family and immigrate to the United States. "We didn't come here as immigrants," she corrected me. "We came as political refugees, and I initially thought that we'd be back in Cuba within a few years at the most."

When the brutal Castro dictatorship refused to loosen its stranglehold on her birth place, she became an immigrant, and from there on an American citizen from her white-streaked hair down to her heel bone (that's a Cuban saying). Like my father, she loved her adopted country with a ferocity, that I sometimes feel that only people who have been bloodied by Communism can feel for a new, free homeland.

As as I've noted before, Cubans are archaic immigrants... we love this great nation because we recognize its singular and unique greatness; perhaps it is because our forebears had the same chance at greatness and blew it.


I remember as a teenager, once I started going out to parties and things at night on my own (around age 16 or so), that my mother would wait up for me, sitting by the third floor window of our Brooklyn apartment, where she could survey the whole neighborhood and see as far as the elevated LL subway station a few blocks away, to watch me descend the station stairs and trace my way home.

My mother was always fit and, as once described by my father, "flaca como un fusil" (as slim as a rifle). She was strong and fast. She was also quiet, but never silenced, and when needed, could and would command attention.

My mother was always well dressed and superbly coiffed. When we'd go to parties and events, women would always ask her where she'd gotten that dress! The answer was always the same: she'd made it!

At least once a week, to my father's dismay, and in spite of his demands that my mother stop it, she'd get her hair done at the nearby peluqueria (hair dresser).

My dad knew, and respected his limits with my mother. 

I remember one time that my father and I were returning from shopping at the supermarket, dragging one of those wheeled folding carts that could carry four full paper grocery bags. It had been snowing, so the Brooklyn streets were wet and muddy.

When we got to our apartment my father opened the door. He then stood there.

"Go in!" I demanded.

"We'll have to wait," he said gloomily, "Your mother mopped the floor and it's still wet." This giant, tough, street-brawling Galician then looked at me sheepishly, "I'd rather walk through a mine field than step on your mother's wet floor."

I learned a lesson there.

She used to delight in telling stories how, as a child, she would often win the horse races that kids staged around the small country towns where she was raised in Oriente province, where her father was a Mayoral.

"I almost always won," she'd say, and then would add: "Even though I was a skinny girl."

Once, in her seventies, back in the days where you could actually accompany people to the departing gates at airports, we were escorting my oldest daughter Vanessa, who had come to visit, and we were running late. As we got to the airport, we ran to the gate, and to everyone's surprise, Abuela got there first. I still remember how delighted my daughter was that her grandmother could still run like a gazelle.


When I joined the Navy at age 17, my first duty station was USS SARATOGA, which at the time was stationed in Mayport in Florida, and thus my parents decided to migrate south to Florida and moved to Miami... just to be close to me.

They spent the next 40 years in the same apartment while I was stationed all over the world.

The mostly Cuban-American families that lived over the years in that apartment loved my mother, and would always tell me stories about my mother, ever the nurturer, bringing them food when she knew that they were going over tough times, or riding the buses with them, just to show them the routes.

This week, when I arrived in Miami, already somewhat knowing that this was approaching the end, I saw her with tubes coming out of her mouth and her eyes closed. When I spoke to her she opened her eyes, and in spite of the visuals that my eyes were seeing she somehow still managed to look strong. 

I showed her photos and movies of her grand children, and talked to her for a long time.

I thanked her for having the courage to leave her motherland and afford me the opportunity to grow as an American.

When she was being extubated, a young woman came into the room with a guitar and played and sang the haunting free prose of Guajira Guantanamera (The peasant girl from Guantanamo); a most fitting song, since my mother was from Guantanamo, and she came from strong Cuban peasant stock.

"Guajira pero fina (A peasant, but a very refined woman)", noted a neighbor and loving caretaker. 

The song, which can start with just about any prose, started with the Jose Marti poem:
 Yo quiero, cuando me muerasin patria, pero sin amo, tener en mi tumba un ramo de flores y una bandera
I want to, when I die, without my motherland, but without a master, to have on my tomb a bunch of flowers and a flag.
She died without a master, a strong and pliable woman who not only gave me the gift of life, but also the gift of freedom.

And as my mother died in her sleep in the early hours of the morning, in the capital city of the bitter Cuban Diaspora, all that I could gather to say to her was mostly the same that I said to my father when he passed last year: "Thank you for your courage... from me, and from my children... and soon from their children. You opened a whole new world for them."

I love you Mami... Un Abrazo Fuerte! Thank you for your gifts to me and my children, and happy birthday in Heaven!