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Who remembers the GI Bill? It was a range of benefits provided by the U.S. government for World War II veterans returning home after the war. Through it, Harold Garde received his initial art education at the University of Wyoming. Seven decades later, the artist’s education engages and challenges us in his works across the decades.

Garde, “the rebellious provocateur” as GrowingBolder.com has put it, was born in New York City in 1923 to Eastern European Jewish immigrant parents. He joined the U.S. Air Force and served in the Philippines and World War II from 1943 to 1945. He was exposed to Abstract Expressionism during his educational years, which clung a bit to his early career.

Garde’s prolific art career began in the later generation of Abstract Expressionists during the 1950s and ’60s. Early influences of Surrealism and Figurative painting in his educational years also seem to have held a motif to his later work. As his career matured, he seemed to grasp an individual gestural abstraction into the figurative forms of art. His works withheld hints of influence driven by the period of Neo-Expressionists between the 1980s and ’90s.

In 1984, Garde and his wife moved to Belfast, Maine, where many of his earlier works are represented. Garde was able to find his place as an artist in Belfast, where he remained an influential contemporary American artist making his mark on the world. In 1993, it was on to New Smyrna, where he then split time between Maine and his Florida home. Garde died Oct. 11, 2022, in Florida, just shy of 100 years old.

Garde invented Strappo printmaking in the mid-1980s as Neo-Expressionists were busy affecting conceptual and minimal art with their intense subjectivity. He developed this technique by combining printmaking and painting as an artistic ambivalence of originality worth mentioning. It is a transference of acrylic paint layers from smooth surfaces, such as glass, onto paper. The technique gives a reversal image of the layered medium, and a “Strappo Monotype.” His famous 2005 “Self-Portrait,” not at all shy by use of line, was acrylic Strappo mounted on paper. Garde taught his technique in workshops nationwide.

Garde challenges us to look back to the post-war movement in a new depth of today’s reality. His work transcends generations; to view it is to feel the past as an offset to emotional provocation. In the art industry, it is well identified that successful art is a work that provokes emotion, or which provokes a distinctive reaction. It is a work that defends itself while connecting points of view within the psychological stratosphere of others. It is a movement with time, as Garde proves to us, in shadows of color and thick use of strokes.

For example, “Nude Woman 2” is a geometrical offset between spatial relationships, and it is fortified with contrasts of color. It can be a reminder of the short-lived Fauvism even before his time. In one way, Nude Woman 2 appears to be divided into four separate sections. When we look deeper, the form absorbs its colorful depth, and into a minimized picture as a whole. It is then a man hiding behind the door where Nude Woman 2 is, and here we can see the desperate yearning for his helpless passions. These passions are further emphasized on the door that his back is against, where thought-provoking consciousness holds to his ear. Then we have a still life that decorates the room. What better color to use to paint a flower and what the flower sits in? The geometrical usage surpasses cleverness; it is where we see emotion as Garde shares it with us. It is the emotion that brings the painting to life.

Garde composes the figurative landscape into a two-dimensional acrylic on canvas in “Lady with a Cape” (2005). The passivity is here and is to be revealed within the autonomy of his subject, as Garde seemingly avoids any further depth away from her arm. The flattened background seems less important than the figure, and yet somehow a part of her, while the colors are geometrically atoned to emotion. Here, he develops a synchronicity of it that is held by her expression.

“Harold Garde at 100: The Unseen Works in Two Acts” features 100 never-before-exhibited artworks. This exhibition will unfold over the course of 2024, with selected paintings and works on paper from Maine, New York, and Florida. These works highlight the continuity of Garde’s clear vision and his unwavering symbolic hierarchy across decades.

With a passion and talent for music, Enrique “Rik” De Cubas, lead guitarist and vocalist for the rock and top-40 party cover band Havoc 305, says the band also wreaks havoc in the 954 and 561 area codes.

Originally known as the Swinging Richards, the current name evolved over a brainstorming session one evening and took hold.

Whether singing the Beatles’ “Come Together,” Rod Stewart’s “All Right Now,” or Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing,” De Cubas and his bandmates, lead vocalist and guitarist José Almonte, bass player and vocalist Arthur Granquist, and drummer and vocalist Jwani Brito, bring their own style and energy to each gig they play.

“Playing for our fans, friends, and family brings us much happiness,” says De Cubas. “We love the energy our audience brings, and we get a lot of energy from them while we play. We couldn’t do what we do without them, and we are indebted to their support and loyalty.”

All the musicians began playing music at an early age. Granquist started piano lessons at the age of 5 and played competitively by age 7. He learned guitar in high school.

Likewise, Brito, born into a musical family, discovered his passion and love for the drums early in life, after watching “The Muppet Show” with Buddy Rich and Animal doing a drum duet. Instantly he knew that was what he wanted to do.

Both De Cubas, who picked up the guitar at age 14, and Almonte, who fell in love with music at the age of 5 and grew up watching MTV and playing records he still has to this day, have devoted their life’s work to their passion for music.

The group performs regularly at the Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort and Margaritaville 5 o’Clock Somewhere Bar in Hollywood, THRōW Social in Delray Beach, Copper Blues Rock Pub and Kitchen in Miami, Voodo Bayou on Las Olas Boulevard in Fort Lauderdale, Mathews Brewing Company in Lake Worth Beach, and Crazy Uncle Mike’s in Boca Raton. Additionally, they love to perform at weddings and corporate events.

For New Year’s Eve, the group will appear at Sharkey’s Bar & Grill in Coral Springs to ring in 2024.

Musician Chet Gary, who plays rock violin, mandolin, and guitar, joined the group on stage last October at THRōW Social for some impromptu jamming.

“I enjoyed playing with Havoc 305,” says Gary. “They are professional and intuitive musicians. We developed a groove immediately and generated an exciting conclusion to my electric violin solo in Guns N’ Roses’ ‘Sweet Child O’ Mine.’

“I look forward to jamming with these guys again,” he says.

De Cubas, who admires guitarists Jimi Hendrix and Eddie Van Halen, fell in love with the guitar as a teenager. Self-taught, he studied architecture but left school when he signed a record deal with Cane/Universal Records, with the Latin rock group El Duende, and toured with the band during the mid-1990s. Their first album, “Transición,” was a Top 20 hit in the Latin rock charts.

He went on to perform for more than a decade at Murphy’s Law, in the Hard Rock Casino Resort in Hollywood, from where fans still recognize him to this day.

Music, he says, is both a harbor and a refuge, and it stimulates him, makes him happy, and picks him up when he’s down.

“Once I grab the guitar and my fingers graze the metal strings and the strings hit the wood, it’s magical,” De Cubas says, noting that he still practices every day to keep muscle memory intact and his technique and precision crisp.

He met band member Almonte through drummer Brito. The two also perform separately as the Havoc Duo.

Almonte, who doesn’t remember a time before he was singing, grew up in New York and the Dominican Republic. A real rocker, he loves Guns N’ Roses and Led Zeppelin and counts Chris Cornell, Axl Rose, and Robert Plant as inspiration.

With Havoc 305 for the past five years, “it’s been a great ride,” he says. He is a married father of four grown kids in a blended family.

One of Almonte’s favorite things is to be on stage with his best friends, energized by the music and the crowd. “On those nights when the music is pumping and the energy is there from the crowd, we make a perfect match,” he says.

He loves to perform “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” and to get the crowd up and dancing along to the 4 Non Blondes’ 1992 hit, “What’s Up?,” singing along to the refrain “What’s Going On?”

Long-term goals for the band include going as far as they can here in South Florida and branching out to create original music.

Almonte has written and performed an original song titled “Warped” that the band is arranging, each adding his own touch.

“We’re a hard-working band,” he says. “We love to have fun while playing, and we hope our audience has as much fun as we do. It’s a high to see people dancing and smiling and having a great time.

“That’s our job—we’re entertainers,” Almonte says.

Visit Havoc305.com or like them on Facebook. Sharkey’s Bar & Grill is located at 10365 Royal Palm Blvd., Coral Springs. For tickets to the New Year’s Eve show, visit sharkeysfl.com or call (954) 341-9990.