LP: Do you still paint?

AV: I can’t at the moment, my eyes are my priority, and they are under repair. I’ve had three operations and the fourth one is coming soon. They did an operation for one eye and then in September I have another operation for the other eye. Then I will get glasses and I can start painting. At this moment, I do see some objects very clearly and then everything goes hazy. When I go into the forest and start picking blueberries I see that all blueberries are in a bunch, I start reaching for them and my palm is empty. Everything is offset somehow. So I can’t really do these things at the moment, I can’t even read, but then on the other hand I can do gardening and that is something I enjoy doing.

LP: When was the last time you wrote?

TV: I haven’t written for almost a year. There was the preparation for the exhibition and I haven’t had much time for writing. The last novel was about a family that does Abramovic’s performances. This man is a rich businessman and this woman is highly educated, with curator’s education. Here in Estonia we have a couple of really good young women who I used and mixed together. Then finally they have the opening of Marina’s exhibition - a couple of years ago there was her exhibition in Tartu, she also came and showed herself to the Estonian people. But my novel ends with this performance of ‘Breathing In/Breathing Out’. Then the hair of this woman who imitates Abramovic and wants to become her and her husband that businessman are tied together; then they start breathing to each other’s mouths. The same that Marina did with Ulay. The end sees both of them going away, dying, as they keep on breathing carbon dioxide into each other’s mouths.

LP: How has Abramovic inspired you?

AV: Abramovic was in pain while gazing into the other person’s eyes my idea was that when people look into each other’s eyes for a certain period of time they start to exchange feelings. I made my students look into each other’s eyes for up to an hour. They were crying and laughing together and making silly faces; it was so entertaining. Here are two polar opposites, one almost kills herself by making herself look into the visitors’ eyes by also torturing the audience, and I just made my students enjoy exchanging feelings. Afterwards, the paintings they made were crowdpleasers.

LP: How do you get them painting?

AV: You just have to give them the paint and encourage them a little bit. Irritate them as well and they’re ready to paint. There’s a building company in Estonia Koger and Partners and they’ve come to see me twice, the senior executives. Once we even went to Sicily, that was fun and now we’re meeting again. I just recently ran into Andres Koger I looked at him and said “Listen, there is something bothering you” and he said, “I’m glad I pumped into you, let’s do it” and now he’s inviting me to his country house. All his executives, 15 men, will be there as well. So it starts again, with him it’s always super exciting.

LP: So this gives you another kind of satisfaction?

AV: An artist always looks at other people’s work as well and gets excited. The same is with me; I don’t know I just really enjoy it. Already as a child I’ve made other people do something, e.g. I dragged Erika to Estonian Academy of Arts, then Sirje, she went to Tartu Art School and even Jaan Toomik [well-known Estonian contemporary artist]. He once told me I’m to blame for him becoming an artist. He had watched one of the first films that Tiina Park made about me in Pirita [a suburb in Tallinn] in 1977 [from 00:41].

LP: Can you tell me about the book that received the Eduard Vilde Literary Award in 2015?

TV: ‘Mõned kummalised naised’ [Some strange women] was the 23rd book I wrote. I had a nude art exhibition in Haus Gallery in 2014. 16 nudes and then I was celebrating my 70th birthday on Kura island, and we were there for quite a while, I didn’t really want to celebrate in Estonia and then suddenly I got an idea and was like why should I lay on the beach the whole day and there’s not much to do at night as it gets dark quite early and then I decided to write a novel about each of those paintings. These 16 novels are dedicated to all of those female characters and at the end of the book are the paintings details. In front of each novel is that particular painting and the novel has the same name as the painting. For example, ‘Torso’ and then you just think out a story, it was quite fun

AV: It’s a divine book, it’s special and there isn’t another book with this kind of an idea.

TV: And there can’t be.

LP: How many paintings do you have in Moscow’s Tretyakov Gallery?

AV: I have five or six sea paintings there. When Tretyakov went under construction I suddenly received a letter from the Ochakiv’s Sudkovsky Seascape Painting Museum. I had just finished a triptych for Moscow, they had ordered it, it was during the Summer Olympic Games [1980 Moscow’s Olympic Games] and then two paintings were sent to Sudkovsky’s museum but one was left to Moscow. And then from Ochakiv I received a request to do a copy; they wanted the triptych. You know I had a battle with them for a year on how is it possible to do a copy from thin air; it will not be a copy. Then ultimately came a letter saying that if I don’t do the copy they will order it from someone else. It was a threat and that wasn’t something I wanted, so I did it. By the way, I received more for the copy than the original. That’s one thing, but then I received a message saying that your paintings are hanging in the same room with Aivazovsky’s. Can you imagine they sleep in the same room all together? That really is something, I only now thought about it, it’s quite amusing. My uncle bought Aivazovsky’s ‘The Ninth Wave’ from the market and it hung above my bed. I adored that sea painting; I scrutinized it, studied how it’s painted and all that and now, can you imagine, suddenly my paintings are together with Aivazovsky’s.

LP: What is your next mission?

AV: In connection to marine artists, one of my favourite dreams is to have one glorious exhibition in London: from Turner to today. Aivazovsky should be included as well and can you imagine how interesting this exhibition would be, there are so many different ways to depict the sea, after all it is a living creature. Imagine how nice it would be to be with Aivazovsky in the same company as Turner. I’ll keep on dreaming, all my dreams have come true, but who should I send this message to, ideas do fly around in the air.