Writing the Month of August for you, 2010
Maty Grunberg – Images, Naomi R. Azar, Translated from the Hebrew by Louise Bethlehem.
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Naomi R. Azar and Maty Grünberg met in May 2010. During the month of August 2010 Maty left for London and New-York and in his absence Naomi wrote a diary, discovering, in her special humorous way, her great love for him. On Maty's return he read her diary and was fascinated by Naomi's writing. He picked entries from the diary and combined them with thirteen water color drawings which formerly lay abandoned in one his chests of drawers in rainy London, waiting to see the light of day that finally appeared thirty years later on the sunny shore of Ajami, Jaffa, Israel. The impact of Maty's images and Naomi's writing created a book about a gentle process of falling in love.
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"You remember that I once asked you if it is possible to love someone in retrospect?
Two of your pictures sent electric current through me.
The first—your portrait of Yossi Stern as a young man.
The second—the photograph that hangs in the passage leading to your bedroom
where you stand erect next to your work like a proud rooster, your torso exposed,
your body proclaiming arrogance, but your eyes are kind.
Had we met then, we would probably not have loved one another.
Yesterday I paged through your catalogue. Your work is one wonderful story. You are another.
I notice when I embrace you that you are a Babushka doll, one inside another.
As if I am embracing all your selves over the years:
Matitiyahu, Matiya, Matus, Matyushka, Mat-the-Red-Beard, Mathieu, Maty.
So many. Body inside body inside body.
And it makes me feel so good, all these Maty-selves. An enormous mass."
Two of your pictures sent electric current through me.
The first—your portrait of Yossi Stern as a young man.
The second—the photograph that hangs in the passage leading to your bedroom
where you stand erect next to your work like a proud rooster, your torso exposed,
your body proclaiming arrogance, but your eyes are kind.
Had we met then, we would probably not have loved one another.
Yesterday I paged through your catalogue. Your work is one wonderful story. You are another.
I notice when I embrace you that you are a Babushka doll, one inside another.
As if I am embracing all your selves over the years:
Matitiyahu, Matiya, Matus, Matyushka, Mat-the-Red-Beard, Mathieu, Maty.
So many. Body inside body inside body.
And it makes me feel so good, all these Maty-selves. An enormous mass."
