Dear Shaded Viewers,
A love letter, of sorts, to an old friend — and a look at his new mural for Historic New England
Diane Pernet x Ruben Toledo interview
August 2026
Diane Pernet: When you draw an object from someone else’s archive – a stranger’s chair,
a stranger’s dress – whose story are you actually telling: theirs, or yours?
Ruben Toledo: Both, at once. In my imagination, we all become one. As in a film I am directing, I
look at the object and become “it” as I observe its physical reality. While I imagine its use, I also
become the person who handled it, used it, wore it, or looked at it. I try to imprint the artwork
with all the emotional content the object has awakened in my imagination.
The artist and the object become one and the same. I hope to transmit that emotional impact –
the history wrapped up in these objects – to the visitors of the new Historic New England space.
I want them to feel that they are not simply looking at history; they are somehow entering it.
You’ve spent your career finding the humor in fashion. Has that instinct ever gotten you
into trouble, or made you say something you later wished you’d said more gently?
I am indeed always in trouble with someone or something, but trouble is not my aim. I find
humor only in what I care about and feel love for. My sparks of humor fly out of me like burning
arrows from the open windows of a place that houses joy and pleasure.
My satire is Cupid’s burning arrows, which I hope land gently on my target. When I miss, I
humbly beg forgiveness for my unintended insensitivity!
Style Dictionary was an alphabet in 1997. Is the Haverhill mural the same alphabet grown
up, or is it a different one entirely? What’s changed in how you see an “A” or a “Z” now?
Wise woman you are, Diane – and very sharp recall, too! My Style Dictionary A to Z, which was
first conceived and published in Japan in 1983, has never ceased and continues to evolve.
I enjoy adding to it while simultaneously projecting forward into the crystal ball of futurism or
traveling way back into ancient history. I remain amazed at how relevant and linked everything
remains. Like an archaeologist, I enjoy understanding how our combined human experience is
part of a continuous, rhythmic composition.
I recognize the echoes and vibrations from another time in the contemporary, vibrant notes of
today. Those links only elevate my enjoyment of both past and present. So perhaps the
Haverhill mural is not a new alphabet at all – it is another chapter in the same endlessly evolving
language. The Haverhill project introduced me to exotic, mysterious new objects, landscapes,
and a coastal culture only found in New England. This will certainly add some new letters to my
alphabet.
You’ve always worked in collaboration – with Isabel, with curators, now with an entire
town. Is there a version of your work that only exists when you’re completely alone with
it?
My entire life has been blessed with collaboration. Somehow, I manage to never feel alone. I
think my tribe, my ancestors, are too busy surrounding me. Like a Greek chorus, they never
stop the engaging dialogue, commenting and pointing me, serendipitously, in the right direction
– or even the wrong direction, just for the fun of it.
Certainly my greatest love and collaborator, Isabel, enjoyed pulling pranks that at first seemed
to me like a very wrong move and inevitably turned out to be the greatest creative revelations.
Collaborations only take flight and travel far when there is deep trust on all sides. We have to
feel trust in order to take the risk that comes with collaboration. It is like being a trapeze artist on
the high wire.
With the epic Haverhill project, I have to win the trust of the town because I am handling their
collective history. I take that very seriously – as if I were handling my own open heart. The
wonderfully fierce and knowledgeable curators Michelle Finamore, Lorna Condon, and Nora
Carlson guided me through the New England experience, and the enthusiastic participation of
the town became my creative reward.
Cuba shaped you before New York did. What’s a piece of that first landscape – a color, a
shape, a sound – that still shows up in your line even now, so many decades later?
I think Cuba – and specifically my hometown of Havana, which I consider a sister city to New
York – is infused into everything I do. It is less one specific element than a way of perceiving
and experiencing life, and the rhythmic movement of the wheel of time as I travel through
different experiences.
But surely I can see it in my preference for inky black on white: the starkness of the brilliant
white sun against the deep, pitch-black shadows that define the nooks and crannies of Old
Havana. I see it in the cast-iron grillwork, with all its humorous, seductive curly-cues that
suddenly finalize in cruel, Inquisition pitchfork endings.
The contrast and collisions of delight and horror – the opposing clash and starkness of
black-and-white streets against the turquoise-blue-green sky and crashing blue sea – were an
everyday visual and sensual experience that delighted me and shaped me to the core.
Old Havana appears like a mirage to be a splendid baroque conch shell rising from the vapor of
the Caribbean Sea. And then there is shiny, gritty Manhattan, which presents herself sitting
impudently on a silver platter full of deadly sins and delights. Both landscapes, with their hidden
charms, continuously light my creative fire.
You once said history shouldn’t sit behind glass. What’s a piece of your own history –
something personal, not curatorial – that you’ve deliberately kept behind glass?
Everything! That is why I keep it behind bulletproof glass – for the sanity and protection of my
soul.
Public murals invite the public to paint alongside you. What’s the most surprising thing a
stranger’s hand has added to one of your walls?
All the gloriously – and often hysterically – diverse choices of color. I love seeing how an object
firmly embedded in history and fixed in our imaginations can be completely transformed when
someone perceives and reimagines it for the very first time.
I am also delighted by the haiku, poems, recipes, and very personal recollections that are being
shared and embedded into the mural. It has become a living time capsule and a facilitator for
communication – a way of instigating a community conversation.
In a way, it confirms for me how graffiti was born: people needing to leave something of
themselves in a shared public space and creating a public sketchbook.
If a young Ruben walked into your studio today, what would he be most disappointed to
learn about the industry – and what would surprise him in a good way?
Baby Ruben would be very hurt to finally understand that everything must change, and that
nothing will remain the same.
But what would surprise him – in a very good way – is that every single occurrence, whether
brilliant or disappointing, every single event and person and experience, will be forever linked in
a winding golden chain.
Nothing is wasted. Everything is a necessary step towards what comes next.
You’ve drawn thousands of women in your career. Has the way you see the female form
changed with age, and is there a drawing you made decades ago that you’d draw
completely differently now?
I was blessed to recognize my muse, my woman Isabel, at the age of thirteen. She became my
ideal “every woman”
– whether old or young, of different nationalities, skin colors, and body
types. Within my artwork, all women are a stand-in, a symbol, a version of Isabel.
She personifies all the levels and emotional varieties of womanhood that I have come close to
understanding. Because I knew Isabel for five decades, I was privileged to witness her
evolutionary womanhood happen before my eyes. I watched her magically transform from a
teenager into a young woman, and then continue to blossom into the many different adult
versions of herself.
She never ceased to amaze me with her endless growth and transformations, even until her
final physical departure from this planet. Surprisingly, she carried all these women inside herself
even at thirteen, and somehow I could sense that about her.
There is such a deep and satisfying pleasure in witnessing someone evolve through all their
different selves, like a splendid and rare flower mysteriously opening to reveal its essence.
For me, women are the most mysterious element on this living planet. I will never understand
them, but I remain completely drawn to them, like a magnet.
What does it mean to you to keep beginning again – a new residency, a new city, a new
alphabet – at this point in your life?
For me, change has always been excruciating. I resist it with all my might! I hold on by my
fingernails for as long and as strongly as I can to the ledge of a very tall skyscraper, from where
I am being pushed, as if in a nightmare. I cling on for my dear life!
Then, when change inevitably occurs, I realize – like Jack and the Beanstalk – that I am only a
small part of a much more humongous, naturally occurring growth spurt. Eventually I
understood that I did not fall off at all. When I finally let go, I instinctively grew up instead.
But I never, ever learn this rotating lesson.
I think because I was a political refugee and was uprooted early in life, I have always sought
security and longed for stability. I was born during the Bay of Pigs invasion, and the collective
anxiety and uncertainty of that tense era are embedded deep into my cells. Somehow, that
instability also erupts into my creative output.
Because of my rocky start, I instinctively grow roots absurdly quickly and deeply wherever I am.
I become attached very quickly to the joy and pleasure I find there and never want to see it
disappear.
By contrast, Isabel loved change. She adored the unknown, constantly discovering the new and
being surprised. She was my complete opposite – which is why we made such a perfect blend
for living.
What are you still looking for that you haven’t found yet?
Everlasting stability and an endless sense of security!!!
Later,
Diane
