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Miguel Puldon

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Jose Castelar, Cueto

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Nelson Dominguez

Sublime passion and friendship around something they believe is major art – the Habano – have gathered, in this sort of creative confab, the likes of Nelson Dominguez, painter; Alfredo Puldon, photographer; and Jose Castelar (Cueto), holder of the Guinness World Record for the longest cigar ever made.

“Everything around the Habano is art,” they say time and again throughout our conversation. “It’s an art that starts in the field, with the planting and harvesting of the leaf that later on grows in endless expressions and moments.” And they have put this much and more into an exhibit that will remain open as part of the activities for the 14th Habano Festival. Jose Castelar, a.k.a. Cueto, tells us he learned the cigar-rolling trade at an early age just to make ends meet, a profession that grew so much more and even made him a celebrity when he grabbed his latest Guinness World Record for the longest cigar (81 meters and 80 centimeters) ever rolled. For his part, Puldon, a photographer who feels the Habano as part of his life, as a must-have during the creative process of recent years, owns up that as much as 80 percent of the exhibits he had exposed have either had to do with or have put tobacco in the limelight. The third member of this project is no less Nelson Dominguez, winner of the National Fine Art Award, an artist who metaphorically calls the smoke of a cigar the perfect drawer “for the different images it suggests in its whimsical whiff.” He adds it’s also some kind of “spiritual companion” for his mornings, “something that dignifies Cuba and has struck the attention of many Cuban artists from several generations to date.” With Re-Creations, this trio of friends and Habano lovers pay tribute to a centuries-old tradition, to a unique product that is also a permanent presence and source of inspiration in their lives. Nelson intervenes Puldon’s pictures, while Cueto’s hand-rolled cigars are thrown into an eye-catching installation: two clips carved by the artist prop up a humongous 10-feet-long snake. The pictures change so much in the course of this process – Puldon says – that the photographic originals are displayed next to the intervened pieces. There’s a brief unbroken silence. Nelson looks at his puffing Habano and remembers a celebrated tobacco grower, the late Alejando Robaina, “a good old friend with whom I used to form some kind of friendly secret meeting that planted in us this need to huddle and work together around tobacco.