The story of the artist, the wall and everything that will now come afterward goes back to early 2023.
Junior Del Pozo had just immigrated from Cuba and found some work with a crew restoring the event space that everyone in Ybor City knew as Frankie’s Patio. It had fallen into a state of disrepair and was being reopened under the name 1920 on Seventh Avenue. There was an intense deadline to host a party for a New Orleans jazz/funk band at the upcoming Gasparilla Music Festival. The floors were being redone, electricity was being restored, and huge black columns needed to be painted. It was a frantic effort to get the place fully functional to host a concert. There was no thought of touching the enormous wall that abutted the space.
But Junior did not look upon the wall as a repairman, for Junior had been an award-winning artist in Cuba. He saw it as a giant canvas. Every day that he came to do repair work he could not stop from asking a question through the translator app of his mobile phone: “Would you like me to paint a mural?”
Ultimately, he heard the words: “Yes, paint Cuba through your eyes.”
At first, Junior sent broad strokes of color across the wall and few people if any could guess what was coming. But then came the first image — a young Cuban woman on her balcony. It gave off the feeling that she was looking out over her street and that this was now her neighborhood. Then came the white national capitol building that everyone in Cuba knows as El Capitolio. And then the domino players, the palm trees, the musicians. Junior was turning his past into his new home on this very wall and people started to return to peer at it again and again in astonishment.
Junior would become a resident artist at what is now an art gallery surrounding the restaurant called The Attic in the event space. His work attracted other artists and soon the walls of 1920 were covered with original canvases.
To this day, Junior can be found in 1920 working on pieces that fuse the surreal and the natural in a way that often calls upon roosters to make profound statements about life. He is grateful to have the liberty to paint as he wishes and to be free from political tensions. And we are fortunate to be able to now call Junior one of our own. This is the first chapter of the story that brought Junior from Havana as told in Spanish and translated through the app on his phone.
It’s a story of the ironic convergence of hardship and dreams.
We all have decisive moments that change our history.
The first of mine came at a birthday party when I was three years old.
This was in Havana in 1986. Back then, in the neighborhood where I lived, we had this custom at many of the birthday parties. All of the children who came as guests would go home with a present and some candy. Of course, the guests brought a present for the birthday boy or girl. But the host family would set up a table that contained a present for all the other children.
You don’t see this in Cuba now. Now, it might cost a month’s salary for a single toy. But back then many of these presents came through Cuba’s alliance with Russia.
The presents filled the table, and each toy would have a number next to it. The children who were guests had to have a corresponding number on another piece of paper to get it.
This created excitement among all the children, because you could see the presents, and you hoped to find the piece of paper that would get you the present you wanted. Sometimes these pieces of papers with numbers would be hidden around the house.
Other times, the pieces would be put in a pot. All the children put their hand in the pot and would pull out a number. If you got the number you wanted, for a kid, it could feel like winning the lottery.
When I walked into this party, I saw exactly what I wanted. A Viking costume. An American would see it as a child’s Halloween outfit. It had a helmet, a breastplate, a shield and sword. But it connected with me on a very deep level.
My dad had a Viking costume from many years back. It had deteriorated. If I got one, I thought, he would want another and then we could have a sword fight. We loved having play swordfights like the kind we saw in the movies with Zorro.
There was no other prize on the table that I was even thinking about. A game of checkers just did not come close. As soon as I got my piece of paper, I ran over to the table to see if I won the Viking costume. When I arrived, there was already another boy playing with it. A feeling of complete sadness washed over me.
I turned in my number and was handed a different present. A paint brush and 12 watercolors. I was so angry! I just took it and didn’t really pay attention.
This party was at the home of a friend of my Aunt Julia’s. My aunt must have brought the paintbrushes and watercolors with me to my mother’s house that night. She took care of me while my mother was at work.
I didn’t even think about the present for a few days. But then I noticed the brushes and watercolors and something inside me started calling: Paint! Paint! Paint!
I didn’t even have a piece of cardboard to paint on. So I sat on the side of the house and began painting on the stones. I found some broken pieces of tile and started to decorate those. And then my Aunt Julia came out the door, looked at what I was doing and said: “Oh, my God! You’re a painter! Just like your father!”
What? I thought. I didn’t know my father was a painter. My mother and father had divorced when I was nine months old. But they lived very close to each other, and I saw him often.
As soon as my mom came home, I ran over to her. “Is dad a painter?” “Yes,” she said, and I almost became desperate. “I’ve got to see him!” I couldn’t wait to get to his house.
My father showed me some of his work that I didn’t know anything about. I would later learn that his mother had won an art scholarship back in the 50s, but her father would not allow her to take it.
My father gave me brushes and more watercolors and started to show me how to use them. My mother was one of nine siblings, and they would all give me supplies. I’ve never stopped.
Who knows what would’ve happened if I had gotten the Viking helmet? Maybe I wouldn’t have started painting at an early age. Maybe it would’ve taken me longer.
I won my first painting competition at the age of five – the first of many.
Incredibly, my life, like those of all people, is conditioned by moments of division and frustration. But these moments are nothing more than signs to guide you.
I remember reading in The Bible that Paul went to different places and the doors were closed to him. That led him to go to Thessaloniki, and he realized that it was God who was guiding him there.
If you can look at life like that, you learn that disappointments can become victory.
To Be Continued














