SALSA’S explosive, swirling moves are caught in a dreamy freeze-frame by artist José Ortega, designer of a U.S. postal stamp that celebrates Latin dance.
“I wanted to get that angle – that point of pause that hits that beat for that second before the dancers take off again,” says Ortega, whose image of a couple in a free-flowing moment under a starlit night captures the romanticism of salsa.
Ortega is no stranger to New Yorkers.
The 40-year-old Ecuadorian’s earthy mosaic murals adorn subway stations in The Bronx and Manhattan, and his vibrant 80-squarefoot stained-glass art deco window is the crowning glory of Midtown’s historic Buckingham Hotel.
Selected to illustrate the first U.S. stamp commemorating Latin dance, “was a dream come true for a firstgeneration immigrant,” says Ortega, whose love for the sexy, pulsating dance started when he and his mom moved to North Bergen, N.J.
Growing up in Union City, Ortega was drenched in the sounds of the Afro-Caribbean and Latin Diasporas. His passion for music and art grew when he attended the School of Visual Arts and discovered lower Manhattan’s dance club S.O.B.’s.
“I was no longer embarrassed to be Latino,” he says.
“I see dancers all the time. Their moves are etched in my mind,” says the artist, who moved to Toronto three years ago and opened a premiere salsa club, the Lula Lounge. The club recalls salsa’s 1960s heyday when the Cuban sound evolved in Manhattan’s dance halls.
Artist Edel Rodríguez eschewed his distinctive sharp, thick lines, reminiscent of Soviet propaganda art, for softer strokes with his new cha-cha-cha stamp.
Growing up in Cuba, Rodríguez drew military tanks and heroic images of Jose Martí and Che Guevara – but at night he was moved by the softer, cooler images of his small town’s dance parties in El Gabriel, where people grooved on en masse in their yards.
Today, Rodríguez’s work is clear, simple and graphic.
When brainstorming for his stamp illustration, Rodríguez says, “I wanted it to be genuine. I didn’t want it to be Americanized.
“It’s about Latin music and I didn’t want everyone to be white wearing polo shirts.”
So instead, Rodríguez drew a biracial couple dressed in white under a midnight blue sky.
An art director at Time magazine, Rodríguez, 33, went to the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn while living in Bay Ridge. His work immediately stood out, and he was sought out by The New Yorker magazine, where he has since contributed more than 100 illustrations.
Being selected to design a stamp is “a big honor, a rare opportunity, a big deal. What I like about stamps is that [they] touch a lot of people. Everyone gets to enjoy the art,” says Rodríguez.
The other two stamps that are being released are Merengue, by Mexican artist Rafael López, and Mambo, by Cuban-born artist Sergio Baradat.
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MAIL BONDING
Pick up the new Latin Dance stamps at your local post office. The stamps will be released on September 17.