Nellie Andricopoulou: Tell me again everything I know, Natalia. Talk to me about what I don't know. I want to get to know you all over again.

Natalia Mela: What do you want me to tell you?

Nellie: Start from the beginning.

Natalia: I don't know the beginning. As I've been told, it appears that on the day I was born, on the 10th July 1923 in Kifissia, there was a sudden power cut. Sheer darkness. Someone helped place my mother, who was in labour, on the dining table, a big wooden table that is still around. My uncle George Pesmazoglou, who already owned a car at that time, drew it up at the back of the house and I was born under its headlights. Old Louros was the doctor. After the birth my father and all the men went to a tavern to get drunk. It was the custom, meaning there was a great occasion to celebrate.

[An even greater one when it marks the event of a social phenomenon. As that is what Natalia is, above all, with her great obsessions, her contradictions and all her talents that, at the time, were of course yet to unfold.]

Natalia: I come from a historic family. I am the granddaughter of Pavlos Melas, my father was his son. My mother was a Pesmazoglou, the daughter of banker Ioannis Pesma-zoglou who, along with George Stavros, founded the National Bank of Greece - they had both come from Alexandria, and prior to that from Caesarea in Asia Minor. My maternal grandmother was a Miaoulis, granddaughter of Miaoulis the War of Independence naval hero. So all this I carried. And my other grandmother, Mela, was a Dragoumi. She was the sister of Ion Dragoumis and Stefanos Dragoumi's daughter.

[So Natalia «carried all this» like a burden rather than a support, from the very first years of her life. She felt these names imposed on her some duties, without realizing how much easier her life was made by such an exceptionally high social status.]

Natalia: We used to live at Kifissia all the year round, back then. We lived in a small house built by my grandfather, Pavlos Melas, on a fairly spacious property of about an acre. The house was small, designed by my grandfather after the style of buildings in Odessa.

Nellie: That brings to mind Chekhov’s house in Yalta. Were the windows stained-glass?

Natalia: No. There were many pine trees in the garden, big pines, some of which are still there, and lots of cyclamens would blossom in October. Father and I used to plant more of these. When I was small the place was heaven for me. I remember myself inside the brook, the water running all the way from Kefalari to water the garden. The little stream was bliss. I used to go in there barefoot and father would sprinkle me with the watering hose, it was great fun.

Nellie: Other than being your father, he was such an elegant man!

Natalia: So he was. Back then father used to bring Spatharis over for my birthday on the 10th of July. He would place a sheet between two trees, light it and put on a shadow play with Karaghiozis, performing Alexander the Great and other such plays, and we children would applaud. Karaghiozis was a treat. That was back then. Let me tell you more. Mother was obsessed with making things. Not only did she make things with her hands, but as there were no incubators at the time, she got hold of an oil-powered apparatus where she would place 30 eggs and a few days later chicks would hatch. We wouldn't eat or slaughter these chickens, as my parents couldn't stand that, so we used to give them away to friends. At one point, mother had also placed two duck eggs in the machine and when the ducklings were born one of them had a piece of eggshell stuck on its head. Everyone said that the duckling would die, but I felt sorry for it. I took it, I fed it, and it survived. That was Dimitrakis Skordomvekis, as father named it. He used to give funny names to many things. So, as all ducklings follow their master, Dimitrakis Skordomvekis would follow me everywhere.

Nellie: I love your stories, all those things I didn't know.

Natalia: Once, my parents gave me a big present. Father, who would often go hunting in Macedonia with great Athenian hunters, besides returning with birds we would later eat with rice pilaf, would always bring something amusing, specially for me. The most beautiful present was a live deer. We let it loose in the garden, in Kifissia, and I still remember that wet black snout and its sweet eyes with the huge lashes... The first seven years of my life I spent in Kifissia. My nanny, from Naxos, was called Marousa. Her daughter and granddaughter remained with our family. When my brother was born, we moved to 24 Righillis Street in Athens. There was great rejoicing at my brother's christening, cannons were fired – father was an artillery officer. My grandmother, Natalia Mela, lived with us during the first years of my life. She would tell me, like fairy tales, lots of stories from mythology, and many heroes have stuck in my mind ever since. Cecrops, for instance, was for me a very attractive person, like Athena, and so many others, they all acquired their own existence which they have kept until today. With grandmother I used to go to Maroussi, where she would paint sur email various cups and plates at the workshop of Kardiakos, the great ceramicist of Maroussi. That is where they would give me a big lump of clay and I would make various heads, from my imagination. I made a kind of sculpture and found it easy. I'll tell you another story, about a fox that used to steal chickens from mother's hutch. We knew the fox had opened a hole through which she entered the hutch and stole the chicks from the hens. I had seen her and I was delighted because she was so beautiful, her bushy tail standing erect, with her triangular muzzle and her slanting eyes. Devious as she was, I enjoyed watching her. I told no one. But after it had happened once, twice, three times, my parents sensed what was going on, and somehow the fox was killed, either by Birros or with my father's gun. Yet I remember I somehow felt as if the fox and I had a conspiracy going on. That is how I saw it.

Nellie: Her beauty along with her guile had charmed you. You haven't changed a bit, Natalia, you still love plots. Anyway, some degree of mischief is the salt of life. You did not reject the fox.

Natalia: No, I didn't reject her. I remember something else. We had an Albanian gardener, Birros, and a Russian prince who was our driver – we later bought a car which father and mother used to drive. They loved driving the car. Alexis, the chauffeur, a genteel White Russian aristocrat, did amazing things. Every autumn father used to collect resin to make retsina wine. Alexis would take some resin, melt it in an old saucepan and make beautiful shapes. I remember he modelled Skordomvekis. He drew its shape on sand, we patted it to make it completely smooth, then he poured the melted resin on the drawing. That was the first time I realized how one makes a cast. The duckling emerged in relief. My first French teacher was Madame Helene, a wonderful lady with whom I learned my basic French. I took extra lessons with Monsieur Vivier, my school teacher, to get the literature Baccalaureate, that was before the war. He opened my eyes and introduced me to French literature. I also used to recite French poems. In those days, I liked dressing like a boy. Then I changed the way I dressed.
However, mother continued to dress me as she wished and I didn't like the things she bought me. In general I didn't like a lot of frill and decoration, those puffed up sleeves and finery. Nor did I like the shoes I had to wear for our dance lessons. Our dance tutor used to be Newland, we went in turn to each other's houses for the lesson. I had to wear black varnished shoes with a little bow on top and white socks. This bothered me, I found it silly and not up to my standards. I considered myself as being very important. Never mind. I attended the Makris' school, which played an important role in my life, and stayed there until my second year of secondary school - girls were not allowed to stay longer in those days. After the King's return I was taken to the German school, to learn German as well. I finished school at the outbreak of the war, I had started by then to be curious about many things, politics in particular, and became firmly opposed to my parents. I found they were too aristocratic, and that bothered me. I wanted to be a child of the people.

Nellie: We all imagined that being a child of the people was something special.

Natalia: No, I just felt that I didn't belong. That I was left out. When I was younger I wanted to run away from home and wander around, sans famille, like a gypsy. I fantasized about living a gypsy life.

Nellie: That is the teen-age spirit of running away. Later on, some elderly people also feel like this, they want to get away, to make a fresh start, to live – these are their final flings. They run away from home, wandering here and there...

Natalia: I hope I won't do that now.

Nellie: Well, we don't know. That's yet to come, Natalia...

Natalia: Oh well, if I start losing any sense I've got...

Nellie: These are people's quirks.

Natalia: The war had flared up. I became a nurse. I managed to enrol even though I was too young, because my mother was a nurse. I took my nursing diploma and remember that during the first operation I attended, on a soldier's kneecap, I fainted. I didn't like what was expected of me, sitting around wearing a twin set with a rang de perles, waiting for a bridegroom to appear, such was the dream, so to speak. I wasn't like that.

Nellie: You were right, thank God.

Natalia: So, what I was expected to do was have a decent marriage, become a society lady and everything would be all right.

Nellie: That's what they expected from all of us.

Natalia: Indeed. Well, the first thing I did was to enrol myself in the Law School, as my grades weren't good enough for Archaeology. That's when my life completely changed, because along with law studies came politics, rebellion, and I became a communist. Actually I first joined EPON.

Nellie: Were you a Guide until then?

Natalia: Yes, I had been a Girl Guide. In the Law School at university I found myself with all my school friends from Makris, they were all left wing then. We joined EPON straightaway and I found myself with Kitsos Maltezos, our organizer, and Axelos, Aris Nikoletopoulos, Adonis Kyrou and Victor Melas. I was very close to Maria Anagnostopoulou at that time, who later became Maria Filini – she married Filinis who used to play tennis with me when we were young. Tennis was really popular at the time, but of course all that changed when the war broke out. I became Greek National Tennis Champion at the Tennis Club in Athens on 27th October 1940, the day before the war started. Law School didn't interest me that much, I wanted to do something else, something with my hands - I thought that would be even easier. I wanted to go to the School of Fine Arts. I took the exam secretely, as my parents did not approve.

Nellie: What year was that?

Natalia: 1942.

Nellie: In 1943 we were together at Tombros'. That is when we met.

Natalia: That's right. So I enrolled in the Fine Arts School in '42, Jenny Manoussi helped me out, I worked for a year at Dimitriadis' studio and the next year, I and all my friends and fellow students found ourselves at Tombros' – you, Bouba Lymberaki, Nikos Koundouros, Lena Tsouchlou, Vassos Kapandais who joined from Dimitriadis' studio as well, the rest were already at Tombros'. I was struck by the lack of education of the students and wondered how they would ever manage to become artists... We two were very different. Vassos Kapadais was a bright fellow, studying at the School of Philosophy at the same time, he was penniless and had to provide for his mother, too. I greatly admired Vassos. He was Dimitriadis' best student. I finished the Fine Arts School in '48. A lot had happened in the meantime. First we joined EPON. Then, in order to enter the Communist Party I had to prove that I was a mature communist. We used to go on excursions and strolls. Picture this had me spit on the icons at the monastery in Kaisariani in order to prove that I was not religious! After that I became a member of the Communist Party.

Nellie: What year was that?

Natalia: Search me... The conspiracies we made on the fringe of Zappeion, plotting as we sat on the benches in the little wood. Back then I saw a lot of Kitsos Maltezos, whom I greatly admired, he was a poet and a handsome man and somehow he was the one who introduced us to the Party. One day, as he was going down and I was walking up Herodou Atticou street, he said: «Natalia, leave the Communist Party, you have to get out because we're going to be butchered». To which I replied «What nonsense you're talking about getting butchered, are you creating literature now?» Get butchered indeed! I didn't like the word, I would have said 'massacred'. Not that I stood for purist Greek, on the contrary. He left, insisting, however, that there was trouble ahead. I sensed it too, I was becoming aware that some things did not seem right, that they weren't only just interested in throwing out the Germans and the Italians.
Kitsos continued on his way and that was the last time I ever saw him. About a week later he was killed on the corner of Olgas Avenue, in front of Byron's statue. I recall sitting under the big plane tree at the far end of Zappeion with Andreas Cambas whom I was seeing at the time - as I had started dating - and we heard gunfire, two or three shots, then some running in the little wood at the bottom of Zappeion. On reaching the avenue we saw a man writhing on the sidewalk, where Byron's statue stands now. I didn't realise who it was, as Andreas grabbed me saying «Come on, let's get out of here». He was scared and we both started running, each one to his own house. On getting home I had a phone call from Liza Skouze, who lived opposite, she said: «Natalia, they've killed the last Makriyanni». «Who is that?» «You know him, he's a friend, Kitsos Maltezos» - «Ah», I cried, «it's not possible!» «Yes», she said, «right now, at Zappeion». After that, I left the Party.

Nellie: So you left without any procedures?

Natalia: Indeed. They never spoke to me again nor did I speak to them. I wouldn't go where they met, I never went again.

Nellie: I want to know one thing. All right, you were a young girl. But when someone decided to leave the Party, did that involve a risk, was he in any danger?

Natalia: Yes, of course, if he was an important person, as were many of my colleagues.

Nellie: Were Adonis and Axelos important?

Natalia: Of course they were. Axelos was in the Party, Adonis was in the Party, both were important, they were leading members, they knew how to speak, admirably that is. They had read Marx and knew his work inside out. I also read Marx, but never understood a thing. I was steeped in artistic matters at that time, all my friends were artists. I had started to mingle with progressive artists. I wanted to be progressive myself. On the roof of the building where I live now, on 4 Vasilissis Sofias Avenue, there used to be a laundry. That is where I started working, with clay and plaster. I made busts and statues, in a most conservative style. Later, that laundry burned down - but the stable in the yard on Mourouzi street remained. It became my studio where I still work to this day. Various people started dropping in, a nice bunch of people it was, Tsarouchis, Engonopoulos, Moralis, and poets such Andreas Embeirikos who was also a friend of my father's. I knew him from back home, as he would often visit us, reciting «We Don't Have Any Quinces», we all had great fun. Whenever he came over, my father who had a great sense of humour would call out loudly «We don't have any quinces, Andrea». « We Don't Have Any Quinces» was a line from a play in a variety show, which also involved Engonopoulos.

Nellie: «Disengonopoulos and Birbirikos».

Natalia: That's right, and it was very funny because Andreas had a good sense of humour and he had started practising as a psychoanalyst. Every Saturday I'd go to his place where Gatsos, Sachtouris, Elytis, Kavadias, Antoniou, Karantonis and Katsimbali used to hang out. The latter once said when introducing me to his friends at Apotso's: «Here's young Natalia Mela, the Royalcommunist», and the word stuck. I was fairly lucky and possibly intuitive as to who I became close to. I think the ARMOS group were remarkable people. At the same time I started to work professionally, as I was commissioned to produce a few works. I made Alekos Xydis' head in marble. I remember the nonsense we talked about not making holes in our material, everything should be massive and heavy as in the Egyptian sculptures we greatly admired, and were trying to imitate.

Nellie: The motto was the statue must stand firmly on the ground...

Natalia: We had to learn to set it up correctly - these were Tombros' teachings. But I didn't like Tombros anymore, I wanted to be more progressive, so I went to Apartis' workshop. Apartis still wasn't a professor then, he was working freelance. I started by sweeping the studio. Tsarouchis would come over to teach us drawing. We had a nude model which we all paid for. I got to admire Yannis Tsarouchis, his ideas and his terrific sense of humour, and I remember I once went with Aris to a meeting we'd been invited to, where Tsarouchis announced: «Here comes Benvenuto Cellini with Savonarola!» Savonarola was Aris, of course, and Cellini was me. I felt I wasn't talented enough, so I was trying all possible ways to master the situation. That's when I learned to make sculpture. It was then I fell in love with Aris Konstantinidis, and we got married. It was a great change in my life. My father had died in 1950. I was married in '51 and had two children straightaway, Dimitris in '52 and Alexandra in '54. I was a mother then and nothing else mattered. I stopped working for ten years. In the meantime, several people came over from France. I was impressed by Koulendianos who had learned to work with oxy-acetylene. It was also the era of abstract art, it attracted me for a while but it took me nowhere, as I never knew when to stop. I would start something, put one triangle on top another, but I wasn't interested, I was bored. I wanted to learn how to oxy-weld. I went to a school in Palaio Faliro. I stayed there just three months, the time to get an oxy-welding Certificate, because as I was young and pretty, they started to harass me, being the only girl in the class.

Nellie: However, you didn't abandon the other materials at that time to work only in oxy-welding?

Natalia: No, my dear Nellie, and it is about materials I want to talk to you. They have played a big role in my life. Up to a certain time, as you know, I worked mainly with clay and plaster. Yet my dream was to work in marble. The first works in marble I made, which were of importance to me, were those I did with Pikionis. I made a large fountain which was also a memorial to the Fallen Soldier at Leontion of Nemea, in the Peloponnese. I made it from drawings given to me by Pikionis. Before that I had made Chrysanthos' memorial. He was the late Archbishop of Athens, the Prince of the Church as they called him, originating from Proussa – a mythical figure altogether. I recall Pikionis teaching me how to work the marble - I would climb on a scaffold he'd set up, and as I was standing in the light he'd call: «Stronger, ... make it sharper».

Nellie: Now, when was that, Natalia? I didn't see you for four years. I had been isolated by Engonopoulos, he didn't want me to see anybody.

Natalia: I used to see Pikionis every day at that time – it was before the children were born, before '52. I remember how excited I was with marble. How the shadows fade, how it reacts to light, how some points must show more intensely, how I could carve into the marble. I thought that marble should be worked as it was in ancient times, and even earlier, let's say by the Egyptians. Back then I was obsessed about not making holes in the marble, and all that nonsense people used to talk. Pikionis, on the contrary, incited me to make holes. That's how I realized how important the object itself was, not the theories. And I discovered that I could make a statue in the round by carving into the marble, making taille directe. I take a piece of marble and start chipping into it, carving directly. I don’t use the copying instrument, which actually kills the marble. Marble is one thing, plaster is another. I learned to truly love the materials I worked with. Metal is a weapon – somehow it has to shine, to look like metal, to work like metal. The material must be easily distinguished. Marble is a stone, it is rock. You shape it by chipping some parts away, you work by elimination. At the foundry, things are different. You make a work with plaster or with clay, and you take it to the foundry. Do you recall when I made the statue of Bouboulina, how hard I had to work after the casting, hammering away to bring the statue alive?

Nellie: And what about money, Natalia? How did you manage financially? Things were not like nowadays, families wouldn't give money to their children, especially not to the girls...

Natalia: Among my first fans who bought my works were Dassin and Melina. At my exhibition at the Gallery «Ora» I was lucky enough to meet Annette Schlumberger. She was a fantastic old lady, circling around with her walking stick, taking a long look at my works. She then approached me and said: «Could I see the manager? I'd like to buy this, and this, and this, and this». She picked five pieces on the spot, the largest and the most expensive ones. I later realized she was a big collector. She owned one of the largest libraries at the Treille Foundation and a music auditorium at Tour Tour, where these sculptures were placed. She later bought more of my statues and made a big donation to the Municipality of Spetses. A pathway was created near the lighthouse and this is where the statues were aligned.

Nellie: By then, the statue of Bouboulina had also been erected in Spetses Harbour.

Natalia: Everytime I have to set up a monument I get terribly anxious. I feel immensely responsible for the outcome. My work must correspond exactly to what I have imagined, something beautiful that will attract people, something that resembles the hero and is worthy of him. Because it is for heroes you make the monuments. That put great pressure on me, particularly when I was making my grandfather's statue.

Nellie: How many statues of your grandfather have you made?

Natalia: I've made four memorials. One is here in Kifissia, in Kefalari. Two others are in Thessaloniki, the fourth one is in Epirus, in Paidonia, just up from Yannina, where my family comes from. Do you remember, Nellie, the times we saw each other every day in the studio? We employed a nude model whom we all paid for. There were three walls. On the wall coming in at the right Tsarouchis had drawn an angel and had written underneath «The songs are words as well, sung by passionate people, they wish to drive the evil out but the evil will not leave». On the opposite wall some people had scribbled various things. Lydia Stefanou had written (it was the time we were all reading T. S. Eliot's, The Waste Land) «Madame Sosostris, famous clairvoyante had a bad cold». Koundouros had written «Every man chops off a fallen oak». A sailor friend of mine drew a line drawing, a bird, a bird of prey, and he wrote «8 inches long». You see what he meant...

Nellie: Of course. The bird that flies! Do you recall that incident in '48 or '49 when the head of the American Army Mission, General van Fleet, was invited to a big reception at the «Grande Bretagne»? Your parents were also invited but they were out of town, so you decided to go in their place with Minos Argyrakis, you'd be disguised as your mother and he as your father.

Natalia: I remember it very well. In those days Minos was quite filthy, so we had him stand naked on the big easel and lathered him in soap. Then he put on my father's tuxedo, along with his medals, I wore a shoulderless evening gown of my mother's, with a low-cut back, and off we went. The things we did in those days! At the «Grande Bretagne» Minos was seated on the right of the General's wife, I was seated opposite – there were lots of guests – and at one point she cried to her husband: «Dear, dear, General Melas is not only a brave General, he is also a wonderful cartoonist!» - Minos was drawing on the plates, or on the linen table napkins!... Do you remember that round stove we had to heat my studio, one of those French ones that burnt charcoal? We called it Madame Popoff because it was so round. In front of Popoff on the floor there was a real leopard skin, complete with the head, we would sit on it cross-legged or reclining. Later the skin was spread over the couch, and later still I nailed it on the wall, and Tsarouchis painted the angel above it. Various people would come, Elytis, Likos, we'd sit there for hours, well into the night, and talk art. Do you remember when we were at Marmari and you painted an olive tree? You gave depth to the picture, one could see Petalioi in the distance, the sea was shown in a sort of square perspective, and I was so jealous of that.

Nellie: You were very competitive.

Natalia: Yes, I was. I wanted so much to be able to draw like that. But I couldn't. And I can tell you, this was the time I discovered that by cutting a piece of paper and putting it here or there I could slant it in order to give some perspective. I also remember the way you used colour. You made some red ochre brushstrokes, adding of course some blue to the leaves, which gave the olive tree some silvery shine, I so envied your skill. I'd paint the olive trunk black adding some sort of grey on top to depict the olive tree but I wouldn't succeed, while you did. So I found out that I draw better with scissors than with a pencil. When I drew with scissors the drawing acquired more relief, so I thought that maybe in this way I could paint, which otherwise I couldn't do, I had no skill. Remember, I admired you, greatly. By cutting paper then, I created some fairly interesting shapes, and that's how I discovered that Picasso was doing the same thing. You could take a drawing, move it around on the square you were facing and create a picture which had height, and width, and depth. With a pair of scissors you can make lots of things. That's how I made my collages. I painted the newspapers using barrel colours – the basic, Polygnotian ones. I left some areas free so the letters could show through, adding light and shade and some kind or relief to the picture. That's how I made all the collages you know. I also liked to prepare my palette in advance. That is, I knew I would use this particular blue, this black, this yellow and they were all painted with these four or five colours.

Nellie: Beside the colours, you selected the tones. That's important. It's what the Byzantine painters did, who didn't use a palette. But you, of course, worked in a different way.

Natalia: I prepared my colours in advance, I coloured the surface of papers or newspapers, I clipped them, glued them together and made the collages. The most interesting collages I made in Spetses. I don't know why I've been so inspired by this place.

[I remember flippers foaming the sea. Natalia is swimming across the Old Harbour. Why would she be running all around? Although she enjoys walking by the shipyard, looking at the undercoat-red hull and the scattered nails on the ground. That minimal colour of rust. Now, a floating woman, she moves further, pushing ahead her little basket with her tools and some plaster. In a while she will be sitting on the rock, absorbed, turning around in her hands the plaster head of a mermaid. It's one thing working on metal in the studio, another working with plaster on a rock. Once in a while a litde crab ventures out in the sun. Noon goes by and you skip a fattening lunch. One can work anywhere, and always. At least Natalia can. She never fails to do it. Her mind plots. She loves to plot. Plenty of mischief. A crazy little tricycle. A personal vehicle comfortably arranged to take her anywhere she likes. True, there are people given to discussing problems, who engage in very important, very boring jobs throughout their lives. They are thinking and thinking. Where does it take them? Natalia vaguely understands them, at times. She admires them - she believes she has to admire them - she's terribly jealous of them. She envies anything she can not be, any thing she doesn't have. Yet there are also people who give solutions. Their work, important or not, is done sooner. They fix things. Natalia fixes the tricycle and decorates it.]

Natalia: I had also been to Holland, to the Hague,, where I saw Mezdak's Panorama. I was very jealous, I consider it a great work and I wanted to do a Panorama of Spetses. So I made that big one you know and which, I believe, you like.

Nellie: Not only do I like it, Natalia, I can't stop looking at it. Every time I visit you at home I sit across from it and admire your skill, how you managed, with a pair of scissors, to depict so perfectly the undercoat-red hull of the boat. Really, where does your talent lie, in your mind, your eyes, your hands or those scissors? It's most probably in your heart. You have reshuffled the Old Harbour to your needs, as El Greco would have done, with great originality, with the simplest, the toughest and most tender means, moving from the hulls of the shipyard, the plain white house and the dry fields to the lighthouse. Well done!

Natalia: Indeed, Spetses has been a very important island to me. There I built my house. My husband built it and I have lived only happy moments there. All the moments of my life have been interesting and beautiful, but on Spetses I have always felt complete. It was the sea, the sea-urchins, the fishing and that transparent sea, the austerity of Spetses, that space between the houses. They are not crammed - now it's heading that way - there used to be open spaces back then.

Nellie: Often there are days in Spetses when everything is transparent, grey like nowhere else. I have enjoyed this so often in the morning, sitting on your big veranda, facing the lemon trees half-hidden behind the parapet, and on the left those three little cypresses which, we didn't then know, would grow to almost hide the horizon above the sea...

Natalia: I really liked the colours as well, the grey you mentioned, which to me is the naval colour. I also liked the boats, and that grey they'd paint around the windows, the doors... the dried grass that was ochre, as was also the poor soil, and the undercoat-red on the boats - a deep blue that was the sea, that would often turn purple. And I liked the feel of distance, the way you could see the islands from afar as if raised above the horizon... That was Spetses to me. And besides all that, there was that friendship we had, remember how you used to come over and we would chat for hours about art, about painting...

Nellie: And about many other things, the problems of life. Natalia, you remember all that very well. What are you doing now?

Natalia: Now, dear Nellie, I am a grandma.

Nellie: We are both grandmothers...

Natalia: So I have decided to make Archimedes, who said give me a place to stand on and I'll move the earth. This expresses me too - nowadays everything is uncertain and I feel bad not having anywhere to stand. I feel insecure, and I, myself, want to have a lever because I like moving the earth, I think I can make it. In short, I am a volcano, which is why I am interested in all volcanoes and in the Kaviroi... And I have decided to sculpt the other mathematician as well, Pythagoras, he is the second one I am doing and I intend to do the third one as well, the one who invented geometry, but this one is still blurred in my mind, the other two are almost ready. These works I'll make small in size, a la cire perdue, I'll use all my tricks, anything that interests me, anything I love, because that is the only way in which I can express myself properly. When I love something, I succeed.