Muffy Reeder wasn’t planning an art show when she began researching her first trip to Cuba in December 2020. She just wanted to tour the country in a red vintage convertible. While searching for a place to stay on Airbnb, she found just the car—a 1949 Chevy owned by lens-based artist Lidzie Alvisa, who uses it to drive tourists around Havana.
Private tours in vintage cars are an industry in Havana and a fantastic side hustle for a working artist. But Reeder wasn’t looking for your typical hours-long ride through of Old Havana. She wanted to rent the car for her entire five-day stay.
“I really want to see everything that’s down there,” Reeder messaged Alvisa through Airbnb. “I want to experience things. I love the clothes and I love the art.”
“Are you an artist?” Alvisa wrote back.
“Well, I have a degree in design,” Reeder replied.
This was when Alvisa revealed that she herself was an artist. About 10 Airbnb conversations later, the two agreed to a price for a five-day rental, driver/tour guide included, and Alvisa invited Reeder to her studio.
When Reeder arrived in Havana a month later, the car had a flat tire. So Lidzie and her partner and fellow artist, Donis Llago, drove Reeder around Havana in their other car while their driver, Mailon, fixed the flat tire on the 1949 Chevy.
“It became an immediate friendship as soon as we got in the car and we started talking,” Reeder told Creative Loafing Tampa Bay. Soon, she learned that neither artist had shown their work in the U.S.
“When I went to her studio and I looked at Donnie’s work and I looked at her work, I said, ‘This is incredible. Is this in the U.S.?,’” she said.
“We have galleries in Mexico City, and we have galleries in Spain, Italy, Brazil, and Argentina,” Alvisa told Reeder, “but it’s very hard to get anything into the U.S.”
“Can I try?” Reeder asked the two artists.
Reeder established “Strike a Pose Art Dealers,” returned to Cuba in March 2024, and put together a contract.
The first few pieces of artwork traveled from Cuba to the U.S. in suitcases on Southwest Airlines.
“We got through customs, and Southwest told me ‘You are the first person to import art by air on our airlines out of Havana since the travel ban was lifted in 2022,’” Reeder recounts.
“So I got it back here,” Reeder continues. “I showed it to a few people, they bought a few things, and I said, ‘I gotta get more.’ So we’re back in May with more suitcases…Then May turned into my last trip that I just got back from in the first week of November…”
Event Details
On Dec. 1, Reeder shows Lidzie and Llago’s work in the U.S. for the first time, along with work by Cuban jeweler Mario Fuster and American artist Gary Byrd. On her trips to Cuba, Reeder brought two musicians, the musical directors for Blessed Sacrament and Holy Cross Catholic churches Frankie and Vincent Sclafani. The brothers studied with instructors at the Havana School of Music to learn Cuban standards they could play during the art exhibition. In addition to Cuban art and Cuban music, Reeder brought back some Cuban rum for mojitos. And though Lidzie and Llago aren’t able to attend the exhibition, Reeder’s screening a five-minute video that shows them at work and at play.
Looking back on the events that led to this show, Reeder says, “It was just a whim to go to Cuba and run in a vintage car, and it turned into an art dealership.”
It just goes to show, you never know where your next job or your next source of inspiration will come from.
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