Aspasia Papadoperaki
Hard rock, soft touch
OCTOBER 17, 2024
Digging is a process of removal from the inside out. Difficult and intense. Thus, the stone will take life from the life of the artist. Carving is a process of removal from the outside in. Hard and demanding. Thus, the stone will depict the features of the artist. Two diametrically opposed processes that depend on each other. Her emblematic sculptures are the combination of these two. With great willingness and endless patience, she guided me to understand them.
Maria Callas, EL Greco ,Constantine P. Cavafy, Giorgos Seferis, Yannis Tsarouchis. All of them were thoroughly analyzed in our conversation.
I read her interviews, but quite some time after ours, I realized that she gave me a great gift. In the interview, she shared what she discovered while digging into the characters of the people she sculpted. What she told me is not a secret, but she shared this insight for the first time. She referred to things she wants us to see in her works. Each of us, of course, sees what we want to see in these works. But who doesn’t want to know what the creator was thinking? Something else that is very important is that she shared with me, her bold view on sculpture which she wants to be her legacy.
She too, was completely different from what I had imagined! Delicate, with a soft voice, urban grace in her movements, tender and caring. I couldn’t imagine a woman who tames stone to be like this.
I studied her extensively and listened to her sing for two years, from the moment I woke up until I went to sleep.
To create El Greco,
I worked through three books, and I did the same for Kavafy.
Mrs. Papadoperaki, I am surrounded by masterpieces. It is a home that is a work of art, not just a house with artworks. I want you to first tell me about what is happening around me. Here, you see stone in all its glory.
We’ll go to the studio later so you can see all my works! This is the space where I think, organize, write my books, welcome my friends, and selectively surround myself with what I love to see all day. These are my works, photographs, and objects that remind me of beautiful moments and people.Top of FormBottom of Form
You’re a very lucky person, Mrs. Papadoperaki, and it shows everywhere!
I am grateful for my life, which, as you just beautifully said, is dominated by stone. So let me tell you about the stone.
Which you prefer over marble, right?
Yes, I love stone. It’s a malleable material. It goes wherever you want, as long as you know how to work with it, or rather, you know what you want to do with it.
I don’t have knowledge of the technique, and I’m very curious for you to explain some things to me. During the creation of your work, do you follow a particular pattern?
I have a plan for what I want. I have a design. Look here at my designs; they always have lines. I distribute the volume the way I want to cut, shape, or mold it. Stone has this quality, just like marble, but I haven’t worked with it. I won’t speak to you as an expert on both. Marble is a hard material; it’s cold. If you’re not careful, you might hit it somewhere and a larger piece than you intended could break off. Stone is shaped by your hand. It will form as you have envisioned it. Because it’s not small pieces; it’s solid material.
I know. It was in the chemistry curriculum this year, so I learned a lot about stone.
So you have great infrastructure, and today we will ensure that you become an excellent expert in the process.
What I clearly understand is that this is very hard work. Very! The most you can work on the stone is 6-7 hours. Not 8 hours! Only 6-7. In between, after 3-3.5 hours, you can take a break to grab a snack if you want. However, if you sit for too long, your hands, which were warm, will get cold, and then you won’t want to start again.
To help us form a more personal image of you, who are your loved ones?
My nature has always been to love my family deeply. For me, above all, it was the people in my household. My parents and my siblings were my love. I fell in love at some point, but that comes later. A person is always open to that direction. When you fall in love, the other person isn’t everything… what matters is the continuation! The love that I understand has a blood connection. This really ties you closely to the person who is your sibling. You are an only child, aren’t you, Panagiotis?
Yes, I’m an only child, but I hope to find at least the other love you described. I don’t have any other choice.
Ah, great! I really like that.
Well, it’s time to talk about the great works you have created.
Early on, I was very fortunate to be assigned to huge figures. This trained me a lot. I was assigned to Maria Callas unexpectedly, without having to negotiate to win this project, just like with the work on Cavafy.
Before we continue with other iconic personalities, let’s start from the beginning and you can tell us how you approach a project when you take it on.
To portray Maria Callas, I studied her extensively and listened to her sing for two years, from the moment I woke up until I went to sleep. To create El Greco, I worked through three books, and I did the same for Kavafy. These are not fairy tale books; they are essays, scholarly research. I have about 9-10 books based on research related to my work. To make myself clearer, I will compare Constantine Kavafy with Giorgos Seferis. I have worked on both of them. When you take on a personality, you need to study the deeper meaning of their character. Kavafy is a man who knows very well what he wants. He had a philosophical outlook.
He is more legible.
Legible on its own, without the ‘more’ Seferis plays with words. He may philosophize more deeply, but he is ‘this and that’ in what he says. So, I need to convey this in the form of Kavafy. The courage to stand and tell you exactly what he wants. It’s like a student’s measure of what he desires. While Seferis is flabby, he is ‘this way’ and ‘that way.He may be more important ,he has a Nobel Prize, but I believe he does not impose something bold and strong on you.
They fought him without mercy. He was never nominated for a Nobel Prize, but today I believe he is considered a global figure. Let’s return to the psychoanalysis you’re doing.
Just as you said! And do you know how much work this requires? I struggled with Kavafy exclusively for six months at first, but it took me more than a year and a half to reach the point where I could ‘touch’ on what I’m telling you. Research doesn’t stop, though ,it continues in your mind. You say, ‘I’ve grasped things,’ and you need to delve deeper to express yourself better. When we go to the lab later, you’ll see how Cavafy stands brave in the universe.
Only exhaustive research. The photograph tells you nothing.
Oh no! Some people did it. They used a photo of someone like Callas as a model. Maria Callas is not just one; she is many. You have to capture her soul, her mind, her spirit. Let’s take Kazantzakis. Who was he to portray him? He was many things, but he also had a yearning for success, as if he didn’t get what he wanted.
He didn’t ! He was nominated for the Nobel pretzel seven or nine different years. Extremely ambitious.
I would say vain.
Tsarouchis didn’t like Kazantzakis ,he said that if he hadn’t used the peculiarities of the Cretan language, we wouldn’t know him, or something like that.
Not as clearly as you say, but I’m glad you said that. All of this requires study. They offered me to do many works, but I didn’t want to. I wanted time to create what I felt because I didn’t do their legs and their hands.
Emphasis on the face.
Not only that. Also on the body. You will see Kazantzakis shortly. He doesn’t step firmly. It’s as if he’s twisting his legs. This tries to show that what he seeks the most and desires the most is the pursuit of success.
Which of the personalities you have worked with are your favorites?
Look. I worked with Theodorakis. He posed for me. I worked with Giorgos Ioannou ,he posed for me too. They were great figures. But Kavafy and Callas are beyond measure. We cannot compare them to these figures. They were more than just great.
But you never worked with Giannis Tsarouchis, whom you loved very much.
It was never requested.
It’s a pity you didn’t make your friend.
I can’t say he was a friend. I never felt he was a friend. He was a sacred figure to me. Tsarouchis was a rich soul. Such people are rarely born. Very rarely! However, I experienced him a lot, and I think I can say that I knew him well. Without investigating or searching for him. But one could say, ‘What’s so special about Tsarouchis?’ .What does he have? You could not get that sense of knowledge from anywhere else that he gave you, even though he was a sacred monster both as a person and culturally. He was approachable and loved people. He was elusive. Look, above all, Kavafy is not considered a person who rationalizes, but he destroyed his self-image by revealing it. Tsarouchis did not destroy himself. He protected himself.
You come from an artistic family.
My brother Thomas was above all a painter! He was a great talent. I’m not saying this as a figure of speech; he was a truly great artist. If I’m a 1 on a scale of 1 to 10, he is a 10! He was a soldier when I got into the School of Fine Arts. He cried with joy that I was accepted first in this school, even though he himself had been accepted first without competition. I was late to start my studies. I lost my mother right after finishing middle school, and I took over the household because I was the only woman. This meant responsibility.
When I was given the opportunity, when I thought I would never be able to study, I said, ‘This is my life!’. I dedicated myself completely. I loved what I was doing because it was also the solution to my life. Then I received a very small scholarship and went to Paris, where Thomas was still there. I consulted him constantly and was very determined to succeed. We would go together in the evenings where there was dancing, and we tried to capture the dancers in motion with our sketches. It was very difficult.
However, your mother introduced you all to the art.
That’s right! Our mom was a particularly cultured person by nature. She took us to exhibitions in Heraklion, to museums and churches, not out of religious fanaticism.
She saw religion as a cultivation that connected you to culture.
Exactly! Our house was small, but we had a big table filled with materials she brought for us to create. She turned it into a museum. When she went to Athens by boat, she might have slept on a bench because it wasn’t easy to find a bed back then; she would leave her things and go straight to a museum. What person even today goes to a museum after such a journey?
You didn’t start with Fine Arts but with Architecture.
Yes, so we wouldn’t all become artists. However, I really didn’t like chemistry that was required in the exams. The symbols “O,” “N,” and next to them, for example, “18,” meant nothing to me! I can’t even remember a name unless I connect it to something that has meaning.
Wait a minute, when you hear ‘Panagiotis,’ how do you connect it?
Well, ‘Panagiotis’ comes from ‘Panagios,’ ‘Panagia,’ and that’s how I remember it.
Let’s go back. I loved art and mathematics. When I was in the second or third grade, walking home through the narrow streets, I kept repeating to myself so I wouldn’t forget: ‘I’m going to the School of Fine Arts!’. That’s what our teacher had said about me in class. This is my background. So, I took mathematics and drawing for architecture, which I knew very well, but I couldn’t answer in chemistry, and I didn’t even finish the exam.
Indeed, Architecture was cut from the exams!
Now let’s see Crete through your work. Does it dominate?
I don’t confine my love to just one village or a limited area like Crete, even though it’s a country in itself. You can have a special love for your place, wherever that may be, but the most important thing is to express the love for humanity, which is ultimately who you are as well. That is, humanity dominates my work. For this reason, I started reading Paleontology for the first time in my life.
Incredible!
Yes, incredible. I find the origins of humanity in the caves in their struggle to survive. As long as I have my homeland, Greece, that I love, inside me. I was at a world conference about 10 years ago, and there was a dispute—I don’t remember the reason—where they were speaking poorly of Greece. I said to them, “Aren’t you ashamed? We baptized you, we taught you things, and now you turn against us?
When someone only has the information that you are an artist, the most likely assumption they will make upon seeing you is that you are a pianist, perhaps a ballerina, or even an actress. But sharpening the stone requires exceptional strength, and you are so delicate.
So, do you see me as a dancer?
Well, yes, that’s exactly what I just said.
I have gone through very hard work. I have lifted weights, and I’m paying for it now, as I can’t keep my body straight. But you were right about that. As a child, I had such flexibility that I wanted to become a great dancer, regardless of what else I would pursue. When I enrolled in ballet, my father wasn’t very supportive, and much later, when I tried again, I realized I didn’t like being told how to move my body. I dreamed of flying! I admired dancers like Pina Bausch. But I didn’t want that pressure ,I wanted freer dances. I danced a lot, really a lot, traditional Cretan dances. I felt like I was flying through the air. I also danced zeibekiko with Tsarouchis! When I danced, they said there was no one better.
With Tsarouchis, who said that women don’t dance zeibekiko and men don’t dance tsifteteli?
Tsarouchis aimed for us to dance together. But now let’s take a break from your questions because I want to take you somewhere you wouldn’t easily go. I want to take you there. When I started my studies with all my passion, I felt like they weren’t teaching me anything because the teaching method had relaxed a lot.
In Greece?
No, all over the world. I said I would undertake a fight on my own, and the vague concepts that the professors taught, I will make specific for the children who will study sculpture in the future.
Can you make this more specific for me?
The Kouros and the Korai brought humanity to a great height that it never dreamed of. He had philosophers beside him who helped him. This greatness never happened again. And why did he abandon it? To create the greatness of Olympia and the Parthenon that came afterward. Was it worth it? Who would say it wasn’t worth it? It was worth it! But where did the structure of the Kouros go? It is lost.
And what is this due to?
To history. Wars followed, the ambitions of rulers ,this is where the greatness of humanity endured.
Determinism?
No, let’s not put it that way because it reached a point. The Parthenon is the highest achievement, but the structure of the Kouros is lost, and the Hellenistic period begins a slack era that does whatever it wants because that’s what it knows how to do. And I put the word ‘knows’ in quotes.
I wanted to save the situation, I’ve shown all of this but I haven’t said ‘preserve it’. These things hide the effort to see what was lost after the Kouros and became slack. Of course, the word is quite bold because neither the Parthenon nor Olympia, nor Praxiteles, nor the Winged Victory of Samothrace is slack.
But the Structure was lost, which for me is the main theme of sculpture: that it has structure. Maybe I’m tiring you out, and we can talk another time, but I wanted to show you that this is what I’m saving for the future.
You have dedicated your entire life to this art, and when I hear it for the first time, it seems incomprehensible to me; I struggle to understand it.
I wanted to put it in your soul.
In the artistic world, there is immense competition. Did you feel that you were competitive?
I will ask myself to answer. Competition lacks love. Human nature is competitive anyway. But when you love, you identify with others. You say, ‘He is like me, I am the other, and you feel for them.
What about those who compete with you or haven’t treated you well?
I don’t pay attention to petty grievances. I don’t want to compete negatively, even with those who don’t apologize, but I distance myself from them. I’ve learned that I need to be cautious. I didn’t, and I was punished. Because my best friends betrayed me. They found it easy. I don’t regret allowing them to hurt me. Or rather, I do regret it. But you can’t always be on guard. But I advise you to do so from now on, even if you’re still so young. Don’t waste yourself on interactions and don’t expose yourself.
You are not involved in quarrels.
I have lost fortunes from relatives.I haven’t claimed them because I don’t want to hate people through things. This doesn’t mean that I am virtuous. For me, a good person is someone who speaks with their God.
You lived in a more conservative era where the particularities of artists were often hidden, if possible, and their eccentricities were generally off-putting to the wider public. There was not the same level of acceptance as there is today.
Take Tsarouchis and Giorgos Ioannou, for example. It cannot be said that they were not homosexual. Personally, I did not judge homosexuality; it was as if I were unaware of it. I never discussed it with them neither with Tsarouchis nor with Ioannou.
Before we finish, let’s talk about your works abroad that are not among your most famous. You performed Hippocrates at New York University. Very impressive. How did that come about?
Where did you see it?
I was looking at universities in the States and I stumbled upon it just a few days before we met.
I liked that you found it because things like that give me courage. I have so many scattered works here and there. The university’s dean, who was Greek, asked me to do it. I have some related photos to show you below. It was twenty years ago.
How do you work on large-scale projects you have taken on, like in Lebanon?
In Lebanon (people are at risk again), I built a stone structure at my height. I worked on it there and asked for an assistant. They gave me an elderly man. He had a bypass. He asked if another elderly man could come to have something to eat, and he also had a bypass. But it didn’t bother me. They worked, but they had no idea what stone was. They worked because I can make people learn about stone. I have done it at least 100 times.
Just like with the children in Crete? Mainly in Heraklion, but also in Rethymno and Chania.
I would give them tools. The reason wasn’t to make them sculptors. ‘But did you want to make us sculptors in a week?’ they said. No, I don’t want to make you sculptors. It’s difficult to become sculptors. You have a misunderstanding. I wanted to teach you how to carve stone. To make a hollow so that animals can drink water. To utilize every stone, even those from ruins. The stone has pain.
That’s how you started to love sculpture too. With your uncle!
You move me, Panagioti. Exactly like that.
In each of your interviews, you choose to say something you’ve never said publicly before. Is there something you will say for the first time to me?
I already told you! The lack after the Kouros. The deconstruction of sculpture! So you’ve hit a big jackpot. I’ve never said that before, and this, you should know, is my testimony.
It’s a great honor for me, Mrs. Papadoperaki! A great honor.
And for me as well, my Panagioti. It was perhaps the best interview I’ve ever given. But you told me we should also talk about God.
Yes, but it’s getting dark and you wanted us to go to the workshop, so I skipped the question.
Virtue leads you to God. It’s an elusive concept. I want to believe that I communicate with Him. And just to have a laugh to show you where this communication leads: I see in my dream that during a talk, someone asks me, ‘What does God mean?’ What do I tell them now? What is God? What is God, I was saying to myself… Inspiration strikes me, and I say, ‘God is the one who taught us to eat pancakes with syrup!’ Isn’t that crazy?
Crazy beautiful! Yes, surreal!
But God taught us this as well. Just think of bread, water, oil, wine! Everything pancakes need. So it’s what God gave for life. To live!”
Art de la table!
The day we met for the interview, the temperature was 38 degrees. Entering the house, an internal iron spiral staircase led to the lower level, where the dining room is located. Mrs. Papadoperaki had removed the cast from her arm just a week before. Nevertheless, under these circumstances, she had prepared a table with fresh cheese, fruits, chutney, various flavors of rusks, sweets, and many types of tea and coffee. She told me that the tableware was a family heirloom. The way they were arranged had an artistic feel. How to describe it, I don’t exactly know. She kept serving me and wouldn’t even let me pour my own water. “It’s Epicurean,” she told me, and I realized it while enjoying her Epicurean hospitality. It was the first time in my life that such a great person, without knowing me, dedicated time and precious energy to guide and care for me.
