Anatolii Nesterov talks about his life and his art

“My parents worked in reindeer herding and rarely visited the settlement – just like me now. I mostly stay in the reindeer camp. That’s where I learned from nature. And my special teacher was Dmitrii Nikolaevich Yatty. He was a truly tough reindeer herder. That’s how I began working in reindeer herding. Since third grade, I would go to the reindeer herd during school holidays and earn some money. I learned how to herd reindeer, and I love observing nature while doing so. The mountains, the sky, the lakes, rivers, and the reindeer. I love that beauty. I wanted to capture it somehow – on a piece of paper, in a notebook. At some point, I decided to depict the life of a reindeer on its antlers. And everything connected with reindeer herding. That’s how my art began, when I was sixteen or seventeen. You could call them ‘pictures in reindeer antler.’”

Recorded by Erich Kasten. Tymlat, 2002.