• Submitted by: manso
• Society
• 08 / 12 / 2011

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Thursday, August 11, 2011 9:54 am. Cuba mural comes to life By Jeff Cole Olean Times Herald Olean. CUBA — As July concluded, so too did a nearly seven-week project undertaken by four local artists to recreate an image of Cuba’s Main Street as it appeared roughly five decades ago.

Since June 13, Carol Shaffer, Connie Doyle, Sallie Miller and Eric Jones toiled through blazing summer conditions to bring to fruition a breakout depiction of a simpler time. Mrs. Shaffer said working on the mural, which is found on the back of the Roadrunner building at 1 W. Main St., was a wonderful experience.

“I was really proud of the people who I worked with. I was happy with the way it turned out,” she said.

Mrs. Shaffer, a Friendship resident, said she was grateful to many people and groups, including Kel-Kur Electric Inc., which loaned a scissor lift for the project, and the Cuba Chamber of Commerce, which helped fund the special, durable German mural paint that was used. Mrs. Shaffer estimated that roughly 1,000 hours of work were spent on the mural, including the thought process of designing a mural, prep work and determining what supplies should be used.

“It was a lot of work,” she said.

Mrs. Doyle, a Cuba resident and retired art teacher, agreed. She said labor on the mural was performed daily, including on weekends.

“It was fun to draw and paint, but a lot of the fun was when people would stop and remember,” she said. “I grew up in Cuba, so I remembered a lot of things from the ’50s and ’60s. But a lot of people had different recollections, like we asked, ‘What color was the phone booth?’ Not many people could remember.”

Source: www.oleantimesherald.com/news/local/article_b9c7a142-c421-11e0-839f-001c...