An interview with Konstantina Rodi for Greek News and Radio FL
I have always believed that in the city, on rooftops and ground floors with closed doors and with the lights on until late, beautiful things happen. There is always someone there creating, thinking. In one such workshop I met Anna Andreadi on a very cold February afternoon, taking a break from her fire that gives shape to metal.
Anna Andreadi is a sculptor, artist, creator, mother in an artistic family and wife of Themis Andreadi, with whom she recently sang in performances and on his new album. Andreas, one of her two sons, is also an artist.
How did you decide to get involved in sculpture?
I can now say that I started at a time when I didn't like reading for school at all, especially on Sunday afternoons. I kept finding something else more interesting to do, and that was my excuse for not reading. I would go outside - we lived in Panorama, Thessaloniki at the time, so the forest was very close - and there I would find materials for this "terribly interesting" activity, such as pine cones, seeds, sticks, leaves, wires, sometimes even stones that interested me as a form. I would come home, spread out my papers - I really liked papers... Where we lived, there was a housing complex, due to the intense urbanism at that time, those who moved around us were usually foreigners - Americans, French, Germans - whose moving companies had amazing packaging. So I went and chose various papers, including the rare thin silk papers at that time, which I folded, arranged and saved for my constructions with great care. Sometimes I remember even ironing them. And with these combinations I made various things. From little houses, abstract objects, to lamps that wouldn't turn on because the bulb didn't fit... but for some reason I considered it negligible.
I've noticed that artists who are involved in sculpture and painting want to create with their hands. Those of us who have worked in theater don't usually have this tendency.
Yes, because the text and the speech are different - theater is another art, to which I stand in awe just like singing or composing. There was a choice once, I had to choose whether to go to a theater school in Thessaloniki or to a Fine Arts workshop. In Thessaloniki at that time there was no School of Fine Arts, but there was a School of Visual Arts where a group of excellent professors taught, who, due to their political views at the time of the Junta, apart from a small semi-basement space in a technical school building, had no other places to teach. We thus found ourselves, paradoxically, with a group of young children, to be taught by important people, arts, but also ethics. And this was ultimately my choice and the beginning of my later education. Theater seemed to me to have a very large exposure, I did not discuss singing at all. As for anything other than art... apart from English literature, which crossed my mind as another option, I didn't want to deal with anything else.
But you had this tendency, otherwise you wouldn't have thought about it.
Out of instinct, perhaps. In school plays, of course, the teacher always chose me to play one of the main roles, and I would say, "Why is he choosing me now?" But when I was acting, it seemed to me as if I had gone out to play in the neighborhood with the other kids, and with all the naturalness of childish play, the role I was "playing" came out very naturally to me. When I decided to pursue visual arts, several years later, the first time I heard that 'I could also perform in theater' was with Andreas (her son) who was rehearsing Hamlet and I was keeping his word so he could work... 'You're getting into the role well,' he told me. But I like the peace and quiet of my workshop. The familiar sounds and the quiet internal dialogues with the atmosphere I choose to set up and develop a theme.
But lately you've been singing.
Yes. I didn't know if I had a good or bad voice. My mom had a perfect voice, she wanted to be a singer too, so when I would go sing with her as a little girl, she would tell me with complaint, "you're ruining the song, kid," and she would sing it like a cantata, with choruses and a nice rhythm... where should I sing...
Those who sing well usually do this to us.
As if we were sharing a pie. So I was embarrassed, I gave it up completely, I didn't want to sing. Quite by chance, my mother-in-law also told me that I didn't have a good voice, for some similar reason of her own. She had a perfect voice too. The first person to tell me that I had a good voice, unbelievable, was Themis. It was one day here in the laboratory. Bent over the bench and very concentrated as usual, I probably forgot and was humming along unconsciously. It was a song by Machairitsa, "There in the South" and I did a second voice. Themis approaches me and says "how do you do this so beautifully, but your voice is very sweet". Once he told me and once I didn't hear it. Normally I should be happy, but you know, the "voice from beyond" - the commands we call mothers - seem almost invincible...
How many years had you been married before he heard from you for the first time?
Maybe 30. Because I used to go next to him when we were in groups, so that my voice wouldn't be heard and ruin the song.
This is what mothers do and they stop us.
I would tell him "you sing the way you sing and I'll do whatever I want next to you", no one would hear me, Themis wouldn't hear me because he sang loudly, so I was comfortable with that. So he never heard me sing, I didn't sing at home either. And that day it happened. But I didn't want to, I felt like I couldn't and my voice was dying, I don't like this show either. But he insisted. Themis doesn't encourage unless he has something good to say, so I say "just so he can say it, he'll see something". He started with two or three songs at first at home and continued with "you'll sing on the album too". Great, I tell myself, it seems like you have no other choice so look at it as a game. And so it came out spontaneously as a game. He took me up to "Apanemia" there, the atmosphere was more convivial and the environment was friendly so everything was fine. When “Cell” came as a suggestion where we moved to another level of difficulty, I kept the home comfort of the game again. I was wondering how it is that singers can sing directly, interactively with any audience below while at the same time being so focused? The answer was given to me there in “Cell”. I was holding the microphone somewhat far away, as if it didn’t exist and I was staring at the world in front of me, which seemed infinite. But when they made a gesture for me to sing while holding the microphone right in front of my face, the scene immediately changed. It seemed to me as if a protective filter, a mask, something like armor or a curtain intervened anyway. “Oh, I mean, that’s how it explains it, and I see you as heroes…” I’m kidding, I still see them as heroes, the profession of singers is demanding and difficult… and to put it more correctly, a function.
And in theater, that happens. It's very different when you're performing with a mask, you're much more liberated. The exposure isn't as intense.
Yes, I can imagine it a little, you, Konstantina, will know better.
You grew up in Panorama, Thessaloniki, but you never visited New York?
I was born in New York, I am a Manhattanite, which I sometimes say jokingly. My dad was also born there, to Greek parents. My mom was Greek. My dad couldn’t imagine not raising us in Greece, with a Greek education and the Greek language. So he took us from America and brought us here – my mom didn’t want it, she loved America very much. We came, my father said, because “it has beautiful seas, beautiful beaches, mountains, beautiful light, the language, the education…what more could anyone want?”
I think they're giving Greece to us intravenously, there's no other way to explain it.
I agree. I had already started speaking, I was four years old, and when we came to Greece I only spoke English. Out of his anxiety for me and my brother to learn Greek, my father had forced us not to speak English at all, and because I had completely forgotten it, I learned it from scratch at the tutoring center…and I'm still learning it…so intravenously, that is.
You do the work of Athena and Hephaestus. You take the cold material, transform it with fire, and give it form.
It is, as I usually say, a friendly and collaborative metal. I am moved by the history behind the material and by the art of sculpture itself. Since ancient times, the way bronze is processed has not changed much and this very humbly creates a moving bridge. Of course, now with 3D printing this will slowly change.
Tell me about that, about how you get inspired to do a project like these couples.
I'll tell you the central idea. It was the threefold nature of man, the soul, the spirit, the body. So I often represented how the elements of our masculine and feminine sides communicate, react and complement each other... Where there are three figures, there is also a reference to the spirit. Sometimes when we feel defenseless or trapped in difficult situations, we turn within ourselves to draw strength and that is what my themes remind us of in a way.
So it's not couples, it's unity.
That's how it started then and as couples started to become a central and dominant theme in my subject matter, the reference to the couple also started to emerge. It must have emerged when the children started to grow up and I started to "untrain", I had a tendency to be too much of a mom here and there... along with the IV for Greece, that too would have passed.
Thus, the most companionable and romantic element began to appear, a mirroring that is, a face-to-face relationship. It is a closer relationship, within breathing distance, between two non-relatives. It is rare and ideal because love is an art and it is not an easy art at all. My couples stand next to each other but their love is always “unconditional”. In other words, there is no need for what we call “matching”.
What does "to match" mean?
Let me think about what exactly “they match” is… They match means that something deeper connects them. That’s where very special communication codes are created. And I say deeper because when everything happens on the surface… relationships are trapped within the boundaries of stereotypical data, such as color, origin, temperament, age, gender and more. Each one is a unique case. But two people connecting deeply is what moves and inspires me. It also comes across as a little romantic to me. When you grow up, you mature, some wounds heal, you gain a beautiful sense of self-sufficiency and you begin to know almost very well what you want with a special gravity of a strange certainty. “This is where “they match” comes into play.
Like the sympathetic and parasympathetic, where one balances the other.
Yes, just as beautifully as you say, Konstantina. I really like these combinations. That's what I mean when I say "you don't have to match."
For me, it's very important that you have your own space, the workshop. Practically. I believe that for a couple of any age, this is important.
The workshop at home. Because the workshop here is my professional space. But I have also created a small space at home that is my “inaccessible space”. This started with Themis at some point when he told me “this is my space” by demarcating the space of his office and his musical instruments, setting as a condition that we not approach or touch anything. Themis is extremely organizational and orderly. He wants everything in its place and does not want to be disturbed, mainly by changing its position. “Great idea, I thought I would do it too”. So I created my own small space and so I have my own inaccessible space. I am joking of course, “we accept visits but by appointment”. Here I discovered another art. Handmade bookbinding. This is my evening occupation. Very nice and quiet, slow art. Everything is done by hand from scratch. I take the paper, fold it, punch holes in it, sew the pages together with thin thread and tie the cover, which I paint with Japanese ink. Thus, usually finishing around midnight when all of nature is asleep… I open my makeshift wooden press, put my booklet inside, and the next morning I leaf through it with excitement.
Does this relax you like a hobby?
It started as a hobby but I'm now and then combining it with bronze elements in addition to painting. I want each issue to remain unique. I don't want to print it but for now I can't part with it.
The artist never stops creating. I once saw an interview with an actor on ET3 and the subtitles said "retired actor"... I never understood how this could happen.
I don't think the artist can stop creating. I catch myself making various plans, as if I'm going to live - I don't know how long either... I still want a life. Two years ago, these days as we speak, Themis was singing in "Apanemia". So there I suffered something very serious, I lost consciousness, they took me to the hospital in the emergency room. Inside the ambulance I thought I half-heard "we're just in time for her". I remember that at some point I saw a sweet light. I took a breath and it seemed as if the aromas of nature were coming. "There's nature from there" I said. I saw some figures that wouldn't let me pass, dark because they had the light behind them without speaking to me. From 12.30 when they took me, I opened my eyes at 04.00 in the morning. When the doctor came she said to me "I wonder how you live". My high blood pressure dropped to 4,7. Shocking but immediate. Since then, my attitude towards life has changed a bit. Now, to take something seriously it has to be very serious, objectively. Now with the seriousness of the childlike approach, the play of everyday life has become more spontaneous, improvisational and above all emotional.
In the Andes they call it pukllay (game), a very serious tradition, and they say it's like the game of lovers, who look into each other's eyes and there may be panic around them, but they have created their own world. Or like children who build a castle with sticks in the dirt, and for them it's a real castle, they believe in it with their being, their heart, their body...
I remember what it was like when I would go outside to play, to find the "amateur" stone, the flat stone, for the lame. I would search diligently for the right weight, the right shape. I was very focused on finding the right stone.
You're right, now I remember that it was important for this stone to be flat.
Yes, of course. She shouldn't have many noses... when I found her I thought I had won the whole world.
Andrew – The Japanese have an interesting idiom for this. When they speak respectfully to someone, they say, "You're acting like you're doing this well."
AA.- That he's doing this seriously, how nice.
Andrew – That he is so good at it that he pretends to do it.
AA.- That comes from his ego, right?.. We also did an art with Andreas, butoh, it's something like a dance. It started after the atomic bomb and the Japanese wanted to hide the wounds, and they also hid the people who had been affected by the bomb, who had been deformed, or who had some kind of defect. They only showed well-dressed people in their plays, the others were considered a shame. This movement refers to these people, it put them on stage, and when you play, you play with the parts that hurt you.
Andrew – It is physically focused, and you let the body speak with its wounds.
AA.- When I went to this seminar - I was also a tai chi instructor and there was a ballerina with us - before we even got the basic idea, we were doing our own thing, that is, the things we knew how to do well. So the teacher came, looked at us seriously and said... "I wonder what your business is here for." I said, "Sit down, let's pay attention for a bit," the man said something to us. At the end of the second day, he said to me, "You did well on that." The next day, stupidity again, he said something to me again. When we were leaving, I asked him anxiously, "Teacher, how is it possible that one day I've got it and you tell me everything is fine, and the next day I'm losing it and you're telling me I'm doing it badly again?" The Japanese teacher looked at me calmly and said “me too” and continued, “when we reach a good level, something we learn well and are ready to move on to the next, the beginning of the next level is like crawling. Like starting from the beginning. At that moment you think you have fallen behind, but you are ahead.”
You come in here and create and outside there is chaos, news – politics – mothers losing their children – politics and the church standing against a woman… how do you create with all this happening?
This is something I will look back on in my childhood. When I started growing up, early adolescence, my friends had flirtations, relationships, I didn't participate in them because they didn't invite me, I didn't dance. A shy child. When I asked a friend of my brother's "why didn't you dance with me"? he told me "but you didn't look over 11"! I looked small as a twig, they wanted girls at the dance. But I didn't understand this at the time and I said "I'm going to create my own world, a fairy tale world", the way I wanted it, with whatever colors I wanted. And when difficult things happened to me outside, I dealt with them like that. I entered my own beautiful world. But this also helped me to be dynamic when I was outside, because it filled me and that was enough for me, it gave me strength. When I come here, to the workshop, it's another world. I shut the world out. But when I'm out, I'm dynamic, social, involved, caring.
How does your creation begin, when you don't have an order, but just want to create?
Something emotional comes out of me at that time, which is not very clear. It is a feeling that wants to come out, and it goes by itself. It is like trying to build a story – instead of writing it, I set it up with materials. Of course, there are also long periods of complete pause – I used to be scared of this, now not at all. A month would pass, two months, I would say “it’s over, admit it, that was it”. Then a tsunami would come out – because it really does look like a tsunami, of emotions in my case. Other times inspiration comes under pressure, during an exhibition period for example, a torrent of inspiration would come. It all works strangely…
Andrew – When there is great conflict and tension, there is production. It falls when there is too much calm.
So each of your works is an emotion of your own?
Only. I don't get inspiration from the outside world, like for example from a landscape. They sometimes tell me "you went to the countryside, so you'll come back full of images". No, on the contrary. When I'm in nature, I'm completely drawn into it, the same goes for music. In other words, I don't return with images that could function as inspiration but with emotions that I can't define at that moment. It comes from somewhere, I don't know the source.
It is perfectly healthy to bring emotion into the open. Not just to express it, but to give it form and space. That is health.
I'm not afraid to express my feelings. I'm a little withdrawn in general, I'm a little shy, I have an awkwardness, but when the emotion overwhelms me I won't hide it. It always finds a way. "I might be disappointed," they often tell me. Yes, I might, but I would be more disappointed if I were afraid to express it, to communicate it, to bring it to light as you say.
So your works are also interactive. I, who don't know what emotion made you create it, can interpret it based on what it tells me.
Yes, that's right, it's a pure emotion that defines a story. Once upon a time there was a lot of snow in New York and the residents had to stay indoors for days. I received an email from a person I didn't know, "I would like to thank you, because while I was stuck inside, your work kept me company." I was moved. The truth is that I don't disconnect from my works, wherever they go. Even to the ends of the earth. When I part with them, I greet them but I don't say goodbye. I connect, and it's like I'm also connecting with the people who now have them close to them.
You talked about the exhibition before, how do you feel about the exhibition and the contact of your work with your clients?
Exhibitions are like passages, you leave a calm everyday life and enter a world of lights, movement, constant communication and rapid changes. I look at the people who come to my exhibitions carefully, with interest. It's like a psychogram. That is, from the way they look at the works, I understand where I will direct them for the purchase they will make. I am more focused on the person I have in front of me. I don't have what they call "commercial thinking" at that time, quite the opposite, besides, I feel great honor for their interest.
I am very happy to see the love and romance that your figures bring out. The Greeks had love as their god, but since the advent of the new religion, they have been forced to suppress love. And they need it. Practically, in their lives.
I was never close to church, nor were my parents, although my mother kept the customs, but only for holidays with friends and groups. And the strict icons of the saints and Christ… I don’t believe that Christ was so strict and sad, nor the saints. My figures are romantic. And it’s rare. People don’t fall in love like they used to, or so it seems to me. Apart from some happy exceptions, a large percentage are now connected based on appearance. The image of the woman with lips and breasts and buttocks, the wrinkle-free one – and of the man with abs and generally well-trained bodies… but all of this is so hard and demanding that a large part of the joy and atmosphere of the sexual act is lost along the way…
...of the act of love, but also for our hearts, these things are hard.
Very harsh. I sometimes see where young people gather, usually divided into groups of women from here and groups of men from there… There is now a reticence. This also has a harshness. Maybe again, I say, somewhere, in some other places this scenario does not apply and young people with other perceptions turn the wheel a little and life goes to better places.
I think that the filter that you have found in your own space and are creating is what all people need. Everyone needs to let out their emotions in order to be healthier.
I think so. This is what art offers you: Every day is a special day. You are simply there, with whatever the day brings. What the wise say about “now” art constantly reminds you of.
I want you to send a message to the parents of children who have an artistic tendency. I say this because in Greece there is always the insecurity of the State that does not take care of artists. In your family, you are all artists.
They are not wrong about the insecurity. I was lucky because when I started we lived comfortably, things were going well. However, right now the thing with Culture and the Arts is going from bad to worse. They tend to eliminate artists, to reduce the value of art. If some could never even mention it, they would. Where? In Greece! Another paradox. Good voices, good composers, good painters are being devalued. Parents need to encourage their children in art because it is the bridge to meaningful life. The joy of children's play and seriousness will be bridged with art. At the same time, however, they must also have a tool, another skill, to survive. The system must not break them. Right now, the system is relentless. Although I know from experience that if you create something, there will always be a recipient, it's good to not rely entirely on that anymore.
And a message from you for the Greeks of Florida?
Because Greece is a small and vulnerable country, those who can stand by it in any way, help it and do not forget it. Although it has stood firm through the passage of time, it does not mean that it has secured eternity. Take care of it as they would take care of their parents. Care for it, Do not abandon it helpless. It does not deserve it. Support the artists, right now they are in a very difficult position.
Let's close with the love that your forms transmit.
They have something dreamy, they are in their own world, the love they present is a little transcendent, it is their way. There is sadness in the world, closed souls and alone. We encounter it more and more often. Souls are lost unjustly and others live at their expense. With so much darkness around us… I cannot think of anything more subtle and profound as a compensation, beyond a, let's say refined and therefore "transcendental" relationship in love, in affection and in friendship.
