Henri Flores

“I was nine years old when my parents decided that my brothers and I would be safer in Miami, even though they had no clear idea what actually awaited us there.

“At the airport my father managed to smile when he handed us each a box of good Cuban cigars, but my mother was straining to push back her tears. It wasn’t until I had children of my own that I began to understand the power of the emotions behind all that water that she was holding back that day. I tried to act cool like my two older brothers, but when they opened the door to the runway the fumes and noise of the airplane engines came roaring into the waiting room like an angry animal and my cool started to melt. As I ran across the hot tarmac trying to catch up, my legs went numb, and then my feet left the ground. I found myself floating behind them like a balloon.

“I floated up the stairs to my seat, floated to Miami, past the man who took my box of cigars and then gave me ten dollars. I floated into Pedro Pan’s camp, to my uncle’s house, and then almost halfway through my first year of my new American school. Then I discovered that although the kids I encountered spoke a different language, and wore slightly different clothes, there were more similarities than differences between us. I made friends, and that is when my feet finally touched down, but I never forgot about floating. In time I came to realize that floating was my way of visualizing, imagining the new from memory and desire, my way of coping with a difficult situation, and that I wasn’t the only one who did it. There were a lot of American kids, who for one reason or another, had learned how to float too.

“I naturally became a painter and then a writer so that I could materialize the images from my floating imagination and then project them out to the real world. Now I teach others, children and adults, how to visualize, and then push their ideas into the light of day— share their hearts. Currently I’m visiting schools and talking about the books and Cuban history as well as painting murals for visiting artists programs in the City of New York. I still paint portraits and lecture at art schools and Museums. These are a few academic and corporate collections where my paintings can be found: Harvard University, New York University, Cintas Foundation, Travelers Insurance, as well as many homes.”

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