Remembering Akio Takamori

Early in January 2017, beloved and influential artist Akio Takamori died. He was only 66. Just after his death, The Seattle Times ran this obituary, which was reposted with more images and info about his life on cfile.daily. In the December 1992 issue of Studio Potter, Akio wrote "Out of the Cage," an autobiographical article about his early life and about the beginning of his career at the Kansas City Art Institute:

I had gone through the age in which children don’t trust their parents’ judgement or are not satisfied with it any longer.

At that point, I needed guidance from somebody else like a teacher or a classmate. Meanwhile I lost contact with what I used to be as a child. I had been molded by all those years of restriction, judgements and a value system which formed me as a young man.

Ken Ferguson looked over my shoulder at my tiny pieces and told me, 'They are very nice. Make lots of them." It was like magic. The cage built around me disappeared. I can't explain how much that remark meant to me at that moment. I felt as if I had finally rediscovered something that was truly mine, and it was okay to make it.

Learn more about Akio Takamori's work on his website. Studio Potter thanks Dennis Trombatore for his support in memory of Akio Takamori.  Learn more about supporting our efforts to develop and improve access to archive articles here.