La Espera: The Wait                       

2013 Edition of 30 with 3 artist’s proofs    18.25 x 7.25 x .25 inches,  Lithography, silkscreen, linocut, woodcut on Japanese Kozuke Ivory, Cover: blue Kyoseishi Sora

La Espera is collaboration with 17 Cuban printmakers: Adislen Reyes Pino, Alejandro Sainz Alfonso, Aliosky García Sosa, Angelmaidelín Calzadilla Fernández, Eduardo Hernández Santos, Hanoi Pérez Cordero, Ibrahim Miranda, Jamie Rodríguez Cunill, Janette Brossard Duharte, Jesús Reyes Romeu (Chucho), Lisbet Corvo Alderete, Liudmila López Dominguez, Luis Lamothe Duribe, Norberto Marrero Pírez, Orlando Montalbán Rodríguez, Yilian Marie Torres Gómez, Yordanis Garcia Delgado. The essay is by Janette Brossard

La Espera has been the most complicated book to create of the three- Poder, Privacidad and La Espera. Starting in February 2012 I sent 2 models to Cuba along with a DVD of instructions. The papers was shipped from Japan to Canada and then to me in the States where it took 6 months to find a friend to hand deliver it to the artists in December.  In February 2013 I met with a few artists, asking Hanoi Perez and Norberto Marrero to oversee the product of La Espera. The ages of the artists range from Jamie Rodriguez in his early 70’s to Yillian Torres in her early twenties.

Each of the three books requires a binding that implies the theme of the book. La Espera, is a book that needs flexibility. Waiting in Cuba is a necessity whether it is for political change or the daily lines that everyone endures for food, at the bank or on a Sunday afternoon to have an ice cream.

Here we inhabit the wait from our coffee pots boiling as dawn breaks. During the day we ride the wait to move from one place to another. Then we hop off one wait on another, transforming waiting lines into the well-known territory where we rehearse every possible behavior.  The wait accompanied by hope generates a devastating vital force, but when the wait becomes a useless lethargy, then will is broken and reason is lost. –Janette Brossard