The Art of Reinvention through the Craft of Clay

A former professional photographer, musician, and music producer, Osaka native AKIRA SATAKE(佐竹晃） took his first pottery class at the age of 42. When we spoke to the ceramicist in the fall, he was still cleaning up after Hurricane Helene devastated Asheville and other parts of Western North Carolina, an area he and his family has called home for more than 20 years. As he rebuilds his studio and his community, he shares his story of personal reinvention, revealing the secret to his success lies in the healing power of clay.

 

The IROHA: First, our hearts go out to you and everyone in Western North Carolina who has suffered great losses because of Hurricane Helene, but we’re so happy that you and your family are safe. What is the status of your home and studio?

Akira Satake: Our home is in Swannanoa, which is about 20 minutes outside of downtown Asheville, and the town was really damaged. Fortunately, our house is fine, but the area near our house is completely destroyed. We’re okay, but we don’t have water right now, so we’re staying at our friend’s house in Hendersonville.

At my studio, there was 27 feet of water, which is above our ceiling, and that was quite shocking. Where I was until Hurricane Helene two weeks ago, we had 1,600 square feet, quite a nice space. My wife is a pastry chef, and we had a cafe, a pastry store, gallery, and my work studio. I spent a little more than five years there, and we just recently signed a lease for the next five years. I don't know what will happen. It's a good, strong building, but it's an old building, and they are working very hard to restore it, but it will take a long time. I feel really, really sorry for the landlords, and they are the nicest people. They used to be artists, and they started as a candle maker. I never met any nicer landlord before, and this is not fair for them if they have to lose the whole building. More than a hundred artists were in this building. 

I'm already thinking of all kinds of possibilities [for the future]. Right now, we’re cleaning up the tools and pots, bringing them back here to my friend’s house to wash. I'm very lucky. I have six employees, four assistants and two gallery people. Right now, my gallery people are washing my pots and preparing our online store. I’m sending emails and announcing on my social networks to let people know I’m on my way back. This will be big since I don't have any income from my gallery, and I'm a kind of an unusual potter in that I don't show my work in other galleries. Very, very seldom, I’ll do it for a group show, but 99 percent of my pottery selling is through my gallery and my online store. Now, gallery sales are gone, so I need to push on other avenues, which are the online store and Zoom workshops. In January I’m going to Hawaii to do a workshop, and in May I'm going to Greece to do a workshop. That's something to look forward to, but also at the same time I feel a little bit uncomfortable to leave this mess behind. The River Arts District, where my gallery was, was definitely one of highlights of visiting Asheville. We lost probably half of the businesses to this flood, and I don’t know how many of them will come back.

 

IROHA: How did you know that you wanted to be a ceramicist and make this your living?

AS: I was a musician; I played the banjo. When I graduated high school, I didn't think playing banjo professionally in Osaka was a good move as a career. I went to a photography school, and after graduating, I worked in a commercial fashion photo studio for a couple of years. Then I moved to the United States. I got a job as a photographer in San Francisco and worked there for two years. Then I moved to New York City. Very soon after I moved to New York City, I joined a really wonderful band. I was playing my banjo at Washington Square Park when this guy came and asked me to play a little bit for an hour or so. And he said, “Come to our audition this Sunday.” I went there, and these people waiting for me were very well-known musicians. I knew most of them. I joined the band and played a lot of gigs with them. Two of them are multi-Grammy winners. Jim Lauderdale and Larry Campbell and Kenny Kosek. I was so happy to join this band.

With violin player Duncan Wickel(left)

I was going to push my career as a photographer, but it was more fun playing music with these talented people. So, I started to focus on the music. I got a very good client from Japan, and they gave me access to a state-of-the-art recording studio in Ed Sullivan Theater. They said that as long as I worked for them, I could use the studio for whatever I wanted. We did many, many projects there, including a TV commercial, a movie, and a lot of work for the client. In the middle of that, I started the record company, a world music record company, called Alula Records. It was focused on world music, like African, Celtic, Americana, Flamenco, Middle Eastern. At its peak, my company had about 50 people. The music business was getting harder and harder, especially for record companies, because of MP3, Napster, and that kind of stuff. I got so stressed I couldn't sleep anymore, so I was looking for something as an escape. I was sitting on the bed at three o'clock in the morning, and I asked my wife, “What should I do?” I'm going to kill myself if I’m not able to sleep. Maybe yoga, maybe Buddhism, maybe meditation? Something I always wanted to do was to make pots, so I picked a pottery class once a week. I love cooking, so I wanted to make our own bowls and plates. On the first day I went to take a pottery class, I realized, “Wow, this is really fun!” And I felt that I was a natural at this, much more than in music. I started pottery when I was 42 years old.

Pottery has a meditational part and a creative part. I'm not the kind of a guy who can sit and meditate. If I’m creating something, I can focus and not think about anything else. Also touching the clay is a really sensual feeling, and I still enjoy it. When you become a professional, you can't really touch the clay always. It's like being a musician. How much of your life are you touching the instrument? Most of the time I’m talking on the phone and traveling. Luckily, as a pottery artist I enjoy running my company and working with a lot of young people. It's wonderful.

 

IROHA: In addition to being a ceramicist, are you a teacher, showing the younger generation how to carry on the traditions of pottery?

AS: Well, not just to younger generations. My assistants are much younger than I am, but when I give a workshop, the students are pretty often older than I am. There are all kinds of people from college-age students to students who are 85 years old. And I'm 66, so I'm in the middle. I taught music, and I taught, ceramics. But I really enjoy giving a workshop of pottery and ceramics, because for a workshop, I spend a few days, sometimes two weeks, with this group of people, and my job is showing what I do. I can tell them why I use a technique, why I started doing it this way or that way. The Japanese tradition of, you know, finding beauty in imperfection, wabi-sabi—sometimes it's a little cliche to say wabi-sabi, but it's very unique Japanese aesthetic. No other country has that finding beauty in imperfection in the style that Japanese do. My work definitely gets a huge influence from there, so I teach it and talking about the philosophy. Also, “let it go” is a very important part of my pottery style. Something like that is probably Buddhism. I'm not a Buddhist, but I grew up with it.

I felt the same way about this hurricane: “Let it go. What can I do?” I'm kind of energized right now. I'm not depressed. I'm overwhelmed, but I'm not depressed. I'm looking forward to the future. And what can I do to make this happen? I'm kind of enjoying the challenge. So many people are suffering right now and much more than I am. I lost my whole gallery, but some people lost their whole house and family members, too. Compared to that, I feel I'm very lucky. I can bring the gallery and the studio back. I lost location and material, but I still have a community. When you have problem like this, I appreciate the community. It's hard to believe how much help I am getting from everybody.

IROHA: Throughout your different careers, did you feel any kind of discrimination or anti-Asian hate?

AS: It’s very interesting; I never had any experience of that. I'm taking advantage of myself as a Japanese. All my life in United States since I was 23 years old, I never had any problem, and people are so interested in me. Of course, not just me as a Japanese—hopefully and luckily, a lot of people interested in, in me, but me as a Japanese was definitely part of myself. And when I read, especially on the internet, a lot of people—Japanese people who moved to United States—complaining about race, racism, and all that kind of negativity. I don't know why I didn't feel anything like that. I might make other Japanese people and Asians upset for saying this. This is honest. Honestly, I just was very, very lucky, probably. I was talking about this subject to my wife. She's an American. I think, I'm always surrounded by artists. And that is lucky. Musicians, painters, sculptors, potters, chefs. All those people are so appreciative about our tradition. If I'm working in a different type of a place, I'm sure that feeling would be completely different. I’ve never done a “straight” [corporate, company] job, so I don’t really know. Let's take advantage of myself being Japanese, and as long as I have that attitude, I'm enjoying swimming through this interesting world.

IROHA: Do you have any advice for young people who want to follow in your footsteps? And maybe not young people; do you have advice for 40-year-olds?

AS: Advice is not the easy thing to give because everybody's different. When I was a stressed, I was watching the TV program Inside the Actors Studio. Jack Lemmon was interviewed, and he said, “As long as you have passion, it's worth it to push.” I needed someone to poke me. And I said, “Hey, I think I have a passion. I want to make good pottery.” I started pottery already, and I thought I was good at it, and I loved doing it. So, okay, let's see how far I can go with it.

I still play music, but now pottery is my main profession. If I have any suggestion for people of any age, it would be it’s worth it to try it as long as you have enough passion to continue and not give up. My daughter is 26 years old, and she's a chef. Since she was young, I told her that I changed my occupation when I was 42. When I was doing photography, or music producing, or a musician, I just gave 100 percent to be better and to grow. As long as you're doing that in where you are, you're not wasting anything. You went through that time and, you were more interested in a different media, and you really, seriously pushed to maximum effort, then you have a more unique view of the next thing you're doing. When my daughter was young, I always said, “Just give a hundred percent in front of you this moment.” And that is my suggestion, my recommendation for anybody, especially for anyone who wants to be in a creative world.

This is the world premier of a documentary film about me and my work. Thank you so much to David Pierce for creating this beautiful documentary and making it available at this critical time to help me recover from Helene and allow me to continue with my life’s work and passion. 27min.
IROHA: Outside of your work with pottery, what other interests do you have?

AS: Cooking and eating, playing music, and traveling. I'm lucky I'm traveling all over the world with my workshops.

IROHA: Is there anything you’d like to share about the relief and recovery efforts going on in Western North Carolina?

AS: So many people are suffering right now, and I'm happy to be a spokesperson to talk about this. I’d like to promote my global family. This is going to be a long, long process to get back to where I was, and it might not be possible. At this moment, my focus is being positive making sure those six people working for me don't lose any opportunity. I have to make sure they can have a good life. To be able to do that without having income, GoFundMe is really helping me, and because of the generous donations, I’m not concerned about my finances too much or worry about paying employees, and that's very important. I just don't want to make them suffer more. I went through the same thing during COVID. I didn’t lose any of my employees, and after COVID was over, I gained a lot. And now after this hurricane, what I gained during COVID—started doing a zoom workshop and set up a much better online store—and those are two things I'm using those two to survive this moment. Hopefully, I will feel the same way after coming out from this disaster. If I didn't have that hurricane, I probably wouldn’t have this opportunity or idea.

I want to feel like that it was a very valuable experience of this hurricane, especially after three, four years. I really look forward to feeling that way. Yesterday a writer friend messaged me on Facebook, and she said, “As an artist, these things you experience make your art a little bit stronger.” I completely understand. It's depth. Pain makes the depth of art deeper. I'm trying to take advantage of these pains to create the next level of depth. The challenge makes life more interesting.

written by Susan Miyagi McCormac

 

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