Jamie Nares: I’ve learned a lot from my daughters. Watching you draw has been one of the greatest delights of my life. And I find that now, I’m becoming influenced by you. My Statue of Liberty sculpture and Zarina’s sculptures — there’s a deep connection there. Zarina, you’ve made this astonishing sculpture that’s being assembled in China, which is kind of a portrait of me.
Zarina Nares: It’s of Papa naked, breastfeeding. And then you started making these little sculptures afterward.
Jamie Nares: They’re maquettes — and the end result will be photographs taken with Sasha’s 4-by-5 camera.
Z.N.: You were always making something; in every corner of the house there was some little project happening. Watching you believe in your own ideas made us feel like, “Oh, we can trust our ideas.” I can hear you being like, “Zareeny-beany, go for it.”
Jamie Nares: I’ve seen the artist in you appear. When you were little, Sasha, we were staying in a hotel and you had one of those disposable cardboard cameras. You made Zarina and Rara [Jahanara] go into the hallway, pulled up a chair in the room, stood on top of it, opened the spy hole and stuck your camera right in and took pictures. I was thinking, “That kid has eyes.”
Z.N.: That’s the encouragement we got our whole life.
Jahanara Nares: It points you nowhere.
Sasha Douglas-Nares: Still good, though.
Jamie Nares: So many kids are adventurous and creative, and then, around 10, a self-consciousness comes in. I was very keen that you feel good about what you were doing and want to keep doing it. My stepfather was an architect, and music was always everywhere. When I took his father’s 16-millimeter home movies, blowtorched them to a piece of wood and made a celluloid Jackson Pollock, they clapped. They never questioned that I knew what I wanted to do.
Jahanara Nares: Watching you come out as trans later in our lives is such a legacy to pass on. Your past doesn’t have to define you; you can translate your emotions into art that gives back. There can be freedom in life.
S.D.-N.: It’s really crazy to have made a change like this at this age — not to say that you’re old. But from a childish, naïve perspective, life stops when you get to 40 or whatever. And you’ve shown us that it doesn’t.
Interview has been edited and condensed.
