Connection of Hato Viejo with the Dominican Culture.
When the Hato Viejo River flooded the Ceiba de Madera valley, it bathed the already fertile land, higher in the mountains than most agriculture land, soaking the ground in preparation for the May bloom.
I think I was 7 the first year I really remember the colors. The mountainous landscape of my home surrounded by every intense color of the rainbow created a fantasy world straight out of a dream. The tall trees around us protected my family’s coffee farm from the elements.
That vivid landscape provided strong inspiration for many artists in the area, including two of my brothers, Carlos Garcia Baret, winner of the 2015 Art Biennial in the Dominican Republic, and Fermin Garcia Baret- both talented painters, whose works have appeared in important exhibitions.
While building this website, I wanted to bring our Dominican culture into the images we used, and there wasn’t a better way to do that than with their paintings, which already hung from the walls in my New Hampshire home. The vivid, intense colors of their works describe my home country, and the richness of my culture, in a way that words can’t.
So, a few weeks ago, we charged Norwich, VT photographer Kata Sasvari with helping us combine the elegant shots of coffee we needed for the website, with the works of my brothers, by incorporating the paintings of Carlos and Fermin into the backgrounds of these shots.
Carlos, whose work was included in 4% for Education, a social movement that emerged in the Dominican Republic between 2009 and 2012 and was organized around the demand that the government spend 4% of the GDP on pre-university education, creates paintings that represent the music of the DR: the sound of the mighty Hato Viejo River, the birdsong of nightingale, Bobo, and Cigua Palerma- even the sound of the grasshoppers. The unique symphony of the North of the island of Santo Domingo.
Fermin’s work represents the countryside life I grew up in, with its placid breeze, its magics and mysteries. It is a life of religion and myth, ritual and dance, of customs and traditions, where the nuances of the land and the magic have merged with the people.
I hope you enjoy the new pictures- I think you can see why we wanted to use the paintings as background for our coffee. We love colors, and it is a part of our Hato Viejo Coffee story.
Love, Yani
Kata website: Kata Sasvari Photography
Carlos Baret (Kbaret) Instagram: Carlos Baret (kbaret) (@kbaret1) • Instagram photos and videos