Fernando

My grandfather refused to leave his native Cuba even though he despised the oppressive regime he lived under. It was his homeland as much as anyone else’s and he wanted to be buried there alongside his beloved wife. I never got to meet my grandmother, but we were able to save up and jump through all sorts of legal and diplomatic hoops (things were very different in the ‘80s, at the tail end of the cold war) to bring him for two extended visits to the U.S.

On his first visit, he sat for a sculptural portrait. One of my aunts had befriended an older couple who were both retired sculptors. They’d worked on several large-scale monuments in their native country—I don’t remember where they were from unfortunately, this was decades ago, and I was a tyke. The gentleman completed a plasticene bust of my grandfather in a couple of hours and cast it in plaster. I sat beside him as he worked, entranced by the ease of his technique and his mastery of the material. The cast piece was a treasured heirloom, though because he’d painted it a dark reddish-brown, my aunt was convinced it was a bronze. As much as I loved it—and wondered if the experience hadn’t influenced my love of sculpting, among many things that have—I always noticed its mistakes and imperfections. The man was clearly very talented, but he was well into his 70s and his eyes were failing. The bust had all sorts of odd asymmetries and frankly, only bore a passing resemblance to my grandfather.

I decided to remake it, so it’d be right.