A Little Stripe of Blue Sky (2015)

These images are part of the illustrations for my unpublished novel Opening Your Eyes (2013). My novel draws on the memories of Javier Antonio, a young student in a boarding art school during the early 90s. Last summer, Javier’s best friend, a ballet student named Otto, left Cuba with his family. After many years of intimate friendship and mutual support, Javier is alone. Otto’s departure will trigger his rebellious and indomitable character. With the help of a journal, he will fight against the school abuses, humiliations, and bullying. Meanwhile, he will evoke some of his childhood traumas and reaffirm his own sexual identity. His school notebooks become a space of freedom and self-realization, the only place where he can cry out his pain and defeat his worst nightmares. They are like a little stripe of blue sky in the middle of his boyhood storm.

(These pages are among my best-loved works. They are dedicated to all children and teenagers that face repression and biases towards their own sexual identity. With the profound hope that they may and will find a path of freedom, self-actualization, and happiness.)