GUILLERMO'S STORY When the Secret Police came to artist Guillermo Portieles' house studio in Havana on February 1989, he knew he was in trouble...and he knew why. The roots of his crime began in his childhood, in the district of Marianao in the capital city, when he refused to go to the regular school with the other children. Guillermo was born a Cuban " habanero in Marianao a suburb of Habana " – from campesino parents, in 1963, not very long after the Castro takeover of the island. His early childhood was typical of working-class Cubans of that era: A few hours of schooling each day, some hours helping with chores, all of it mingled with lazy hours playing with friends in the humid Cuban sunshine. But early on he discovered the pleasure of drawing -- first, with crayons on scavenged paper, then with brushes and paints on paper, or wood, or anything he could find -- and by the time he was entering his teen years, his painting endeavors occupied him so much that he ceased playing with his peers, gave up sandlot "futbol" games (soccer), and virtually secluded himself in the pursuit of his artistic potential. Portieles's father ( Lazaro ) didn't think much of his son's goals. The life of an artist, a painter, was not a thing he wanted to encourage in his son. Nor did his mother ( Ramona ) view such a life as the best outcome for her child. But she did love him dearly, perhaps especially among her children, and wanted him "only to be happy." If art was the thing that made him happy, then that much she would grant him. Under Castro, Cuba's public school system was built on the Soviet Russian model: basic schooling to age 14, then tracked toward higher education in specialized fields, if you had the talent, or into the working trades if you didn't. The school nearest Guillermo's home didn't offer the higher fields, and the only foreign language it taught was Russian, so he begged his parents to let him transfer to a school outside his district that taught English. Thanks to a recommendation from a kindly neighbor, he was accepted there into an Arts program from which he graduated in 1981. Later, in 1986, he graduated from the San Alejandro School of Fine arts -- with the equivalent of a B.A. in the U.S. university system -- and won permission to enroll for post-grad work in the Institute of Superior Arts in Havana. For the next few years, while working in teaching positions at Havana and attending school, he continued to develop his artistic vision, always searching for subject matter and viewpoints that spoke from his heart and mind to the beholders of his work. And that was what got him into trouble. By early 1989, Guillermo had strayed from the accepted and safe arena of Cuban "Revolutionary Art." Increasingly, his work depicted visions that were -- to say the least -- less than wholly admiring of Fidel Castro and the communist regime. When he produced a large painting of Fidel in full olive-drab uniform, but with horse-blinders on his head, an informant turned him in to the Secret Police. Apparently, the mere idea of painting Fidel as a dray-horse, incapable of seeing anything outside the narrow tunnel of socialist/communist vision, simply could not be permitted. The charge against Guillermo was "Propaganda Politica" (political propaganda), a very serious crime at the time. Guillermo faced a draconian choice: (a) Submit to the overview of Cuban political correctness and deny his personal artistic vision, or (b) be sentenced to one of Cuba's infamous prisons, or (c) voluntarily leave Cuba and go into exile. He chose exile. With help from his family, Guillermo went to Panama, a country with friendly relations with Cuba. From there, he flew to the Dominican Republic where he obtained a teaching position at UCE (East Central University). Unfortunately, the George H.W. Bush-appointed U.S Ambassador in the D.R. denied him a visa as a refugee. Portieles remained in the Dominican Republic for a year. Across the ocean in Tampa, FL, his mother was ill, much to his sadness, he did not receive his red-cross visa in time to be at his mother farewell. She died suddenly in the night from a heart attack .One year later, the new U.S. Ambassador appointed by President Clinton, granted him an entry visa as a political refugee to America. Portieles had relatives in both Tampa and Miami and in October of 1991, he landed in Miami meeting his godfather who drove him to Tampa. In Tampa, working in the freedom America grants to all artists, Guillermo's artistic career was reborn -- a career that has already earned him acclaim, producing a body of work attracting discerning collectors around the world. And with no Secret Police to tell him what he can or cannot paint.