Melt like an iceberg into August with artist and environmental activist Nerys Levy:

If you could name a galaxy what would it be? I’d call it Lumen- translated from the Latin it means light, fiery meteor, or star.
Who would you want to trade lives with? No one. I’m too busy living my own life. I am not driven by envy or discontent but by trying to make the most of the “cards” I have been dealt.
What type of cuisine would you serve your customers if you owned a five-star restaurant? Unpretentious northern Italian food- in not huge portions. Just enough. I have spent a lot of time in Italian kitchens eating “real” Italian food. I would probably serve fish risotto followed by porcini mushrooms on polenta paired with a light Prosecco. Desert would be a light sorbetto. I think most people overeat; food is about quality, not quantity.
What's the fanciest event you've ever attended? I attended an event at Buckingham Palace when my father received an honor. I was born and raised in North Wales and my father was honored at the palace for his service to society.
Who is your greatest enemy? I do not see people as enemies. I see bigotry, hatred and overly radical ideologies and ignorance as barriers, or perhaps '“enemies” to human cooperation, creativity and future coexistence on our planet.

I’m a painter and have worked in the Arctic and Antarctic. My work highlights the harm to our planet as our Polar regions deteriorate as a result of unbounded emissions. I’ve participated in many exhibitions, both nationally and internationally, addressing our vanishing ice. I have also worked with children trying, gently, to get them to become stakeholders in our planet’s future. The Polar work on my website neryslevy.com is being used in climate studies school curricula. Also, Disney Penguins (an educational entity) and the UK Times Education Supplement are promoting this work.

What’s the first thing you pack for an international flight? My art supplies.
If you could only teach three things to a child, what would they be? Acceptance of others without fear. Their own sense of worth. Their unbounded capacity to create and innovate.
Favorite painting? Titian’s Assumption of the Virgin in the Frari church in Venice.
What was your favorite childhood book? I grew up speaking only Welsh and was about 8 years old before I developed a real fluency in English. So my favorite childhood book was a book in Welsh of Welsh nursery rhymes, poems and songs-known in Welsh as Hwiangerddi. Welsh culture is rooted in poetry and music and from the age of 3 or so I attended an all day Welsh language school where we learned how to sing contrapuntal singing to the harp. Our music teacher, Osian Ellis, eventually became the Queen’s harpist and taught harp at the Royal Academy in London.

Like many Welsh children of my early post WWII generation, we were exposed to a lot of religious culture which included learning a lot of the Bible- by heart- in Welsh.

I was also later drawn to works about world exploration; Welsh culture has a lot of missionary history, mostly in India. For my Ph.D in South Asian History at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London University, I chose to write my thesis on the Welsh Mission in Assam, India. I was able to access the archives in both English and Welsh. According to one missionary, my Ph.D thesis was perplexing and written with “ such Olympian detachment.” But one has to stay on task and I do try to be objective in all that I do. I found that even trying to get a local library built was not a popularity contest— but we are soon to get a wonderful new library in Carrboro!
Do you believe that love is blind? I believe that love sometimes can be overly forgiving but the world needs this to balance human cruelty. Altruism is one of the world’s saving graces.

Let’s Talk 10: Nerys Levy

Daria Filippova

Ricky Moore