Art instructor Niurka Casanova is one of those people who, when you arrive at the Tomasa Varona Cultural Center, you can't overlook. She has been working there for 34 years and, from her position, she promotes the necessary processes for cultural development.
Las Tunas, Cuba.- Her history has been so closely linked to the institution that, just six months after being under its protection, she was asked to work on-site in the direction of the plastic arts area. Moreover, she has not abandoned creation and, from time to time, some of his work is seen in exhibitions.
"I work with the instructors at the cultural center in the capital city, with members of the José Martí Brigade who cultivate the manifestation and other amateurs of this expression in the municipality of Las Tunas. Our work is at the grassroots. It is satisfying to see how those talents who once passed through our hands grow professionally. It is enriching," she says.
She especially remembers 2008, when she was selected to participate in the Corazón Adentro cultural mission in Venezuela. "It was an honor to be part of the beginnings of this initiative, to be a founder. It was very gratifying because it is a different country and, although there are points of contact between our cultures, I had to show preparation. I was there for four years, three of them in Caracas and one in the state of Barinas. I taught, but I also learned," he says.
She stresses that something important in the work of an instructor is that it makes them better human beings. "But we must not be satisfied," she says. "We have to take part in competitions, events, community projects... We are makers of culture. This work contributes to the Cucalambeana Fiesta and other events. For years, for example, the province has won prizes in national competitions such as De Donde Crece la Palma. And that's where our work, which extends -in general- to universities, children's circles, prisons, old people's homes and different places, is very important."
Niurka, along with her intrinsic love for her career, brings creation close to her heart. Her pen and ink drawings are particularly noteworthy. The El Cucalambé Ibero-American House of the Décima, the Provincial Committee of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC in Spanish), the headquarters of the Hermanos Saíz Association (AHS in Spanish)), and other institutions have hosted her works, those that glimpse elements of the flora, always related to sensuality and the universe of the human being. Along this path, she has won prizes in municipal and provincial art instructor salons, in the National Hall of Landscape, Illustrated Décima, and Popular Crafts, as well as in the Plastic Arts in April Hall.
This graduate of the former Escuela de Cerámica de Las Tunas (Las Tunas School of Ceramics) plans to cultivate the arts she graduated from shortly, and her great desire, she confesses, is for the cultural centers to have the conditions they deserve. That is why, from September 1st, 1989 to date, he has devoted himself body and soul to this task, which makes him say: "We, art instructors have dreams, we create, we sow... We look for happy solutions to the needs we have. That is our work, a noble work".
