Art News

Cuban Youths Learn to Recover History at Two-Year Workshop at Havana School

HAVANA (AP).- Raidel Molina, a 21-year-old with just a hint of facial hair, gently files down a broken piece of an antique table that’s about five times his age. Next, he explains, he will glue a piece of wood to the spot and then patiently shape it to match the dark-stained leaf molding. “The thing I like most is the detail,” Raidel Molina says. Molina is a second-year student at Havana’s Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos Workshop School, where artistically inclined 17- to 25-year-olds who like working with their hands learn the rare art of historical restoration. The two-year course includes practical lessons in everything from carpentry and masonry to mural painting and plaster work. Students round out their general education with math, history, language and culture to help them