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Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collection, 2015.196.303.1, Connecticut Historical S ...
Cuatro Building Workshop
Connecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collection, 2015.196.303.1, Connecticut Historical Society, Copyright Undetermined

Cuatro Building Workshop

Subject (Puerto Rican)
Subject (Puerto Rican)
Subject (Puerto Rican)
Subject (Puerto Rican)
Subject
Date1999 August 2-6
Mediumslides
ClassificationsGraphics
Credit LineConnecticut Cultural Heritage Arts Program collections
CopyrightIn Copyright
Object number2015.196.303.1-.31
DescriptionSlides of a cuatro building workshop taught by Vicente Valentin of Vega Baja, Puerto Rico, August 2-6, 1999, in conjunction with the Mano a Mano exhibition. Some of the slides depict artwork on display in the exhibition.

(.1) Workshop participants including Ernesto Perez (left), Alfred Rivera (center) and Graciela Quinones-Rodriguez (right) playing cuatros. Alfred plays the gourd cuatro made by Graciela.

(.2) Participants celebrating the completion of the workshop. Artist Vicente Valentin is on the left.

(.3) Workshop participants including Alfred Rivera (right) playing cuatros. Alfred plays the gourd cuatro made by Graciela Quinones-Rodriguez.

(.4) Waleska Arocho-Ruiz is working on her cuatro.

(.5) Workshop participants are being instructed by teacher Vicente Valentin.

(.6-.7) Workshop participants including Ernesto Perez and Alfred Rivera (right) playing cuatros. Alfred plays the gourd cuatro made by Graciela Quinones-Rodriguez.

(.8) Teacher Vicente Valentin with Ed Vargas holding the cuatro he made in the workshop.

(.9-.10) Group portrait with the teacher and workshop students holding the cuatros they made.

(.11) Then CCHAP director Lynne Williamson with teacher Vicente Valentin holding a cuatro.

(.12) Group portrait with the teacher and workshop students holding the cuatros they made.

(.13) Vicente Valentin holding a cuatro while others watch.

(.14) Artist Vicente Valentin with a cuatro.

(.15) Group portrait with the teacher and workshop students holding the cuatros they made.

(.16) Two papier-mâché vejigantes figures in the Mano a Mano exhibit.

(.17) Estampas Típicas/Folk Houses, a model village made of wooden homes and a church, in the Mano a Mano exhibit.

(.18-.19) Workshop participants are being instructed by teacher Vicente Valentin.

(.20) Panderos in process of being made displayed in the exhibit.

(.21) Ernesto Perez plays a tiple made by Graciela Quiñones-Rodriguez.

(.22-.23) Students are working on and trying out their cuatros.

(.24,.25) Alfred Rivera plays a tiple made by Graciela Quiñones-Rodriguez while Ernesto Perez plays a cuatro.

(.26) Cuatros in the process of being built.

(.27) Students are working on their cuatros; photographer Juan Fuentes sits in the background.

(.28-.30) Workshop participants are being instructed by teacher Vicente Valentin.

(.31) Students including Ernesto Perez trying out their cuatros.
NotesSubject Note: Vicente Valetin is a registered traditional artist with the Programa Artesanal of Fomento Económico. He knows the entire process of making cuatros, from the selection and preparation of the woods to the specialized marquetry decoration to finish the piece. Usually he makes his cuatros from a block of wood, hollowing it out and building from this single base, using the traditional method of enterizo, hollowing out a block of cedar. But as with so many art forms, he has also adapted it to suit contemporary tastes and needs. For instance, cuatros made from a block of cedar tend to be heavy, and also take a long time to make. For the workshop he pre-assembled some parts of the cuatro into kits that the participants purchased from Vicente. He explained the entire traditional process, and then concentrated on teaching participants the mechanics of making the sounding board, which he considers the most important aspect. "The most important thing is that they get the fever and the basics, so they can go on and get fancy." There were eleven workshop participants.


Subject Note: "Mano a Mano: Puerto Rican Traditional Arts from Island to City," began with the July 1, 1999, opening at the ICR gallery of an exhibition of fourteen craft forms practiced in Puerto Rico. Later in the summer, five master traditional artists traveled from Puerto Rico to offer week-long workshops in their craft forms to the public. After the workshops ended, participants who wanted to continue working with their crafts were mentored by the local artists on the project team.

This project was funded by the Lila Wallace Readers Digest Fund Community Folklife Program, the Roberts Foundation, the Greater Hartford Arts Council, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Connecticut Commission on the Arts, PRIDCO, and the Institute for Community Research.

Members of the project team were Melanio J. González, Pavlova Mezquida (PRIDCO), Glaisma Pérez-Silva, Graciela Quiñones-Rodríguez, Marcelina Sierra, Victor M. Sterling, and Lynne Williamson. Because of the knowledge and time needed to locate and purchase appropriate materials for the five workshops, ICR hired a local Puerto Rican artist, luthier Graciela Quinones Rodriguez, to help coordinate this important aspect as well as recruitment of workshop participants. The project furthered many goals important to the team, including promoting awareness of the contributions of Puerto Rican artists, increasing access within the Puerto Rican community to training in art and entrepreneurial skills, and encouraging relationships across generations. The traditional arts and crafts of Puerto Rico remain vibrant and beloved, both on the island and in the new places where Puerto Rican people have settled. The project celebrated the strong cultural traditions remembered and practiced by so many in Hartford's large Puerto Rican community.

Artistic, social, and cultural practices within Connecticut Puerto Rican communities show a regular and active maintenance of familiar traditions which link urban Puerto Ricans to the island, to which many return for visits. The primary goal of the project was to reinforce these patterns of cultural practice and remembrance. Other goals included: 1. To address the need for more public programming and education in Puerto Rican cultural expressions, both for members of this community and for general audiences; 2. To reinvigorate local Puerto Rican artists by connecting them with master traditional artists from the island who rarely visit the mainland; 3. To help preserve knowledge and practice of Puerto Rican traditional art forms; 4. To provide training and support for local artists who wish to begin or continue to develop an economic base for their artistic productions.

The exhibition drew from the work of master artists and their apprentices who participated in PRIDCO's Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Project. Through the Crafts Development Office of the Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company (PRIDCO), Puerto Rico hosts an island-wide training program in traditional arts. Law 166, first passed in 1986, mandates that five government agencies in Puerto Rico provide services to artisans for their education and for the marketing and promotion of their work. This enlightened policy recognizes that traditional arts contain great cultural value because they express the collective wisdom and the soul of a community of people. Traditional arts also represent a vital link to the past, as they are transmitted from one generation to the next through long-term, informal, one-on-one teaching between a master artist and a student. Learning an artistic form through the process of apprenticeship is a powerful way to pass on cultural knowledge as well as the craft itself; this process also helps to develop relationships across generations.

On display from July-October 1999, the exhibit was designed and installed by the same team which produced ICR's successful Herencia Taína exhibit in 1997. PRIDCO loaned art works from its Traditional Arts Apprenticeship project, featuring 16 important craft traditions practiced in Puerto Rico today. Traditions featured included: Marímbolas/Percussion Instruments; Panderos/Plena Tambourines; Volantines/Kites; Vejigantes/Coconut Masks; Hatillo Mascaras/Wire Net Masks; Artesanía en Lata/Tin Crafts; Talla de Gallos/Carved Roosters; Alfarería Tradicional/Indigenous Pottery; Encuadernación/Bookbinding; Papel Maché/Papier Maché; Talla de Santos/Saint Carvings; Estampas Típicas/Folk Houses; Tejido de Bejuco/Liana Weaving; Tejido de Enea/Cattail Weaving; Mueble de Mundillo/Lace Cushion and Holder; Bolillos/Bobbins; Mundillo/Lace. Based on fieldwork in the Hartford community, ICR and Guakia added examples from local artists working in similar traditions. Based on research done by the PRIDCO's crafts apprenticeship project, Lynne Williamson edited, with PRIDCO and Hartford members of the project team, extensive bilingual labels explaining the art forms. The signage was produced by the Peabody Museum in New Haven.

At the opening, which was a Greater Hartford Arts Council First Thursday event, the local cuatro group Amor y Cultura performed. Puerto-Rican based artists giving workshops were: Angel del Valle - pandero making and playing; Amelia Fonseca -the art of cake decoration; Vicente Valentín - cuatro building; América Nieves - mundillo lace making; and Alice Chéverez teaching indigenous pottery making. Workshops took place at ICR and at locations in the Puerto Rican community. The trainings were free with some materials costs paid by participants; workshops were bilingual. The weeklong workshops were intensive apprenticeship sessions designed for local artists who already had a level of skill in the tradition being taught or a closely related art form. The purpose is to develop further the skills of artists committed to a tradition so that they will be able to pass it on and perhaps market their work. The last day of each workshop was open to the public.

The two music-oriented workshops (cuatro and pandero-making) celebrated with impromptu concerts by participants. Artworks by the teaching artists were displayed in the exhibit. Two follow-up mentorships were conducted by local traditional artists – Ana Lozada in cake decorating, and Mel Gonzalez in clay art work. They met regularly with workshop participants, encouraging them to continue producing, offering further training in techniques of the art form if necessary, and advising on marketing procedures and outlets. An unexpected benefit from the workshops was the degree of interaction between the participants, many of whom did not know each other before. CCHAP noticed that while they were engaged in the art forms, participants talked openly about their lives and issues important to them. Such workshops could be a useful setting for social or other research projects because people feel relaxed and informal (and in fact this outcome stimulated the development of CCHAP’s Sewing Circle Project in 2007).

During the last session colleagues from Centro Civico, an arts and social service organization in Amsterdam, New York visited the project and became very interested in the potential for arts workshops to enhance communication and information gathering. Also, two of the workshops were held at La Casa Elderly Housing on Park Street, where the seniors showed a great interest in the art activities. Proportionate to its size, Connecticut has one of the largest Puerto Rican populations on the mainland, especially in the major urban areas of Bridgeport, New Haven, Hartford, and Waterbury. People arrived from the island in great numbers after World War II to work in both factories and fields, especially eastern Connecticut's tobacco farms. Puerto Ricans in Connecticut are characterized by their migration patterns - they generally don't consider themselves "immigrants" or "settlers" in the state; they came here for work and continue to live here but frequently travel back to the island which they often view as a paradise, a homeland to which they belong and will return. Their nostalgia for the island is undoubtedly heightened by the difficult conditions many Puerto Ricans experience here, especially in cities: considerable prejudice, urban violence, poor schools, as well as high prices and taxes. An often-mentioned statistic compares Connecticut's per capita income, which is the highest in the nation, with its responsibility for four of the country's poorest cities - those listed above. Although large, the Puerto Rican community here is seriously underserved by local cultural, educational, and social organizations. The community's love for the island and its culture has enhanced Connecticut's cities, especially Hartford, the location of this project's activities. Latinos, primarily Puerto Ricans, make up 35% of Hartford's population. The heart of the community is Park Street, the main thoroughfare in the Puerto Rican neighborhood known as Frog Hollow. Botanicas, bakeries, music clubs, bodegas, and restaurants named for Puerto Rican towns make this a vibrant center of constant activity. Artistic, social, and cultural practices within the community show a regular and active maintenance of beloved traditions which link urban Puerto Ricans to the island, and many return regularly for visits. The primary goal of this project was to reinforce the patterns of cultural practice and remembrance.


Biographical Note: Graciela Quiñones Rodriguez is a Puerto Rican educator, social worker, artist, and luthier who apprenticed with William Cumpiano (Easthampton, MA) and has built cuatros, tiples, and bordonuas. Graciela is also a cuatrista and higuera (gourd) and santos carver. She served as an advisory committee and exhibiting artist and workshop leader for CCHAP’s three Puerto Rican projects, starting as a community scholar with Herencia Taina, CCHAP’s 1998 Taino exhibit project, researching the techniques of higuera (gourd) preparation and decoration for use as household utensils, ornaments with Taino or political iconography, or musical instruments. She also worked as an artist-presenter for the Massachusetts Cultural Council summer institute on Puerto Rican cultural heritage for Springfield, Massachusetts teachers. Graciela is a highly respected arts educator, woodcarver, and singer with the group Tierra Mestiza. She is a Connecticut Commission on the Arts Master Teacher and Artists Fellowship winner. As part of the Southern new England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program, she worked with master luthier Bill Cumpiano. Together they built cuatros, tiples, and bordonuas, older forms of Puerto Rican stringed instruments. As part of the apprenticeship they built a cuatro on the basis of a photograph of an unusual form from the early 1900's, which has a bent wood body rather than a hollowed-out base. They demonstrated their partnership work at the Lowell Folk Festival in 2000.


Additional audio, video, and/or photographic materials exist in the archive relating to this event and these artists.


Cataloging Note: This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services MA-245929-OMS-20.
Status
Not on view
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