Rebecca Nemser

It is art that acknowl­edges the strug­gle of its own mak­ing, and con­veys a sense of life as com­posed of frag­ments, where not every­thing is leg­i­ble, and some things are irrev­o­ca­bly ruined or lost. The past haunts and enrich­es the present. Mem­o­ry and imag­i­na­tion are inter­twined. It is a mir­ror of the soul.

The sur­face of a FLORA NATAPOFF paint­ing is a place where bat­tles have been fought, cities and tem­ples built up and brought down, and on which there has been a wrestling with angels. The means of expres­sion are abstract – marks on paper and scraps of paper that must always hold their own. But the ener­gy to work comes from look­ing at some­thing that moves her. 

In 1979, an 11th cen­tu­ry Per­sian poem with 50,000 rhyming cou­plets, illu­mi­nat­ed by tiny paint­ings in exquis­ite col­ors made from crushed jew­els and insect­s’ wings, inspired my first sto­ry about art. For the next 20 years, I wrote, pub­lished, and broad­cast hun­dreds of Sto­ries about Art in Boston and beyond. This is how it all began.