Doodles and coffee: The world of Sakai Takashi

Sakai Takashi

Today we are speaking in a cafe in Koenji (Tokyo) with Takashi Sakai, the artist who drew the logo featured in the gyaku banner. Originally from Nagoya Prefecture, Sakai studied at Tama Art University (in Tokyo), graduating with a specialization in painting.

gyaku: When did you first start drawing?

Sakai: I've been drawing since I was a kid, but I only seriously began to study drawing after graduating from high school. To prepare for my university entrance exam, I attended an art prep school in Nagoya, and that was the experience that lay the foundation for my interest in drawing. After that I studied painting for four years at Tama Art University.

g: What exactly did you study at university?

S: At university, since students had already passed the entrance exam and understood the fundamentals of their discipline, things like the basics of how to draw were not taught.  Once we had entered the university program, we were given the freedom to choose for ourselves what we wanted to work on. The professors were only in the classroom once or twice a week. Once and a while they would come in and see how we were doing, that was the degree of their involvement.

g: What is this style of drawing you call "mitsuga" (密画)?

S: Basically it's drawing using thin lines. It's a bit like the feeling of graffiti. With some work, it becomes something different, which I refer to as "mitsuga". At university, when I was working on prints or painting on canvas, I would go through many drafts, trying to make my work become what I thought was a "finished product". It was a very suffocating experience. I didn't really like it. I would come up with many sketches ― they were kind of drafts ― but then I greedily made many of them into finished works. Some people might say that they are not "finished work".

g: Did you start drawing in this style starting from when you were studying at university?

S: At that time, all I was doing was doodling! (laugh) . The lectures were pretty boring.  Basically, I was doing a lot more doodling than listening to lectures. I would come up with ideas in that way, and then go to the studio and draw.  What I drew in my sketchbook was always doodles or rough ideas, whereas what I worked on for class was different, those works were going to be shown to professors, so they were larger and in a more formal style. They were very different. But slowly it got really tedious to do this. I really don't like having to separate the process of drawing all these drafts on the one hand, and coming up with a "completed work" on the other. If a drawing looks good as it is, I think it's better to leave it.

Shinjuku station

g: You draw a lot of pictures of stations on the [JR] Chuo Line. I heard that it was when you moved to Koenji that you started drawing pictures of train stations.

S: Right. The first one was Koenji station. At that time there was this very positive feeling in the air, I had this impression that I could do anything. Up to that time I had only been involved with people at the university, and I wanted to kind of actively promote myself.  I had noticed that there was a store selling postcards, so I came up with an idea to draw something and make a postcard, and then ask permission to display it in the store. I thought about what I should draw and then I thought, well I'm living in Koenji so if I draw pictures of Koenji, people will enjoy them. That's how it started.

g: How many pictures are there now in the "Chuo series"?

S: There are already about 18 of them.

g: It seems like your style in the train station pictures has changed, from the first Koenji station to the ones you've drawn recently.

S: Well that's true, I started drawing the pictures in this series four years ago, so when you line them up next to each other, you can see that there is a change from one to the next. Basically, I don't plan these drawings in advance, I just draw what comes to me.  A picture that I drew in the past is different from one that I draw today; each time I draw a picture I kind of start again. You can see that influence come through in pictures themselves.

g: People also figure prominently in your drawings. When you draw these people, do you base your drawings on real subjects?

S: Yes, there are some cases where I do draw real people. In those cases I do try to make the drawing look like the person.  In cases where there is no real person, I create the person in my head, and then I draw from that mental picture. When I was studying the fundamentals of drawing, there were many cases in which I was drawing human subjects, and in those cases I tried to make my drawings be faithful to the model. My prep school lecturer told me: "Whoever you're drawing, the face always comes out the same. You're not looking at the model at all."  I was warned about that a lot. Even when I as looking at the model as I drew, I still couldn't help creating my own images in my head. Once I became free of school and exams, I was finally able to ignore that tedious way of thinking and just think, and draw.

g: Besides people, you also have a lot of pictures about coffee. Do you have some kind of special interest in coffee?

S: Well, I simply like coffee as a kind of object.  Not only coffee itself, but also the surroundings in which coffee appears, the space, the music ― it's an object that evokes many images. When I'm thinking about what to draw, and I start drawing coffee, then naturally the surrounding world just sort of appears. It's a good way to get started.

g: And also the picture on your meishi [business card].

S: Yeah, drinking coffee with a straw (laugh). [See picture at the top of the article]

g: Your drawings of buildings are also quite unique.

S: Yeah, I really like buildings that are old and worn down, kind of rough at the edges. I was brought up in the country, so that old, run down feeling is very familiar to me, it is very much a part of who I am, and that comes through in my work.

g: Have you been influenced by anybody in particular?

S: I started out pretty ignorant. Even well-known artists, I didn't know anything about them. I didn't even know Dali. Then one day, my prep school teacher was showing me a collection of paintings, and I saw some paintings that I thought were really cool. It turns out they were Dali paintings. Since then I've wanted to draw like Dali. That highly-skilled and very beautiful style I like very much. When I looked at Dali's work it made me wonder how somone could paint like that, just with human hands. So yes, I would say Dali has been my major influence.

g: And during the week, do you have another job besides drawing?

S: I work as a graphic designer. I just started, so I'm still training and learning as I go.

g: And besides that you spend your time drawing?

S: That's right. Drawing is really at the very center of who I am, and it always will be. Graphic design is just something that I do to make a living.

g: Do you have any plans for what you would like to do in the future?

S: Eventually I'd really like to start my own business, save money and open my own store. In more concrete terms, I'd like to open a cafe. But not just a cafe, not just nice pictures, but really display the things that mean something to me, that I really like. That's what I'd like to do. "That's something that only Sakai-san could do" ― that's the kind of thing I'd like to do. It's the process that is important to me. If you have money, it's not hard to hire talented people to work for you, hire professionals to style the interior, buy some nice pictures and place them around the store. Anybody can do that, really. But that's not what I want. What I want is to bring together the things that I am living for and build something really special. That's what I'd like to do.

For more information, see Sakai Takashi's webpage.