We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Aya Kakeda a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Aya, appreciate you joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I grew up in Japan and for school students, the best artists in the class were the ones who can draw very good imitations of comic or anime characters. So even though I always like drawing I was too shy to share my drawings because my characters were original and I thought they were too weird. When I moved to the US during my last high school year, I went to an art summer camp hosted by a nearby art college. There I met all kinds of young weirdos who I love. We respected eachother’s creations and never judge. It was a good and healthy community. That’s when I decided I would love to be an artist. I entered the art school which was hosting the camp, and pursue a creative career!

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I am an illustrator and gallery artist. I always liked creating visual images and storytelling growing up. So it was natural for me to major in illustration at the college I went to. When I went to school I didn’t know how there are so many different illustration fields. I concentrated on telling stories with my art during my school years, creating an imaginary island and start making characters who live on this island. And that became the base of my portfolio and art creation.
After graduation, I brought around my portfolio physically to the art directors and also did some postcard promotion. (old school, no? Now I do Social Media and email promotion but at the time I graduated school, they didn’t exist.
I focused on doing a good job one at a time so the next job will come from the previous project. There was no miracle, I wasn’t the top and most popular illustrator, so my clients’ list grew slowly and steadily over time.
As an illustrator for editorial illustration, I work with magazines and newspapers. For those clients, they give me an article to illustrate or give me the theme of their monthly issue and I create a cover illustration for them.
I also illustrate books for kids and young adults which is similar to editorial illustration work, the publisher will give me the script and I illustrate. The only difference would be the deadline. Editorial illustration is usually two weeks turnaround. (For newspapers sometimes you send in illustrations in one day!). For the book, it’s much longer from three months to a year.
I enjoy drawing fun characters, animals, nature, and crafty/psychedelic patterns.

As a gallery artist, I paint, print, and sculpt. My passion for the past 8 years is ceramic.
When I start making imaginary islands and characters during the school year, I wanted to express myself with different materials to create these stories. I experimented with different kinds of printmaking, embroidery, sculpting, and painting. And it was more natural to show these in the space than use them for my illustration works.

I’m glad I have two different outlets for my art, illustration, and gallery.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

Two things that I unlearned. First I need to succeed early in my life and second illustrator needs a strong style from an early age.

I was never top of the class or had a bang right after I graduated. Now the most important thing is to keep going and do the work you want to do. As long as you continue your passion the work follows eventually. Sometimes now I laugh about my prime year will be in my 60s! (Well I am being serious)

As for style, in school, we learn that we have to graduate with a strong style of illustration.
My work was never following the popular trend, they were weird, a bit too Japanese, and strong character-based art I felt that it was difficult to break into the popular illustration market. When I sent my promotion, I often time got the answer that the art directors personally like my artwork but don’t know how to use me in their publication. But slowly those art directors can find some projects that fit me. And once I can start to show the examples that my work can be usable for publication, more clients followed.

Since I like experimentation, my style and materials changed over the years and I was able to work on the projects that I couldn’t have done if I had only one style one material.
And also since I experimented with different materials I created a lot of physical artworks which now I can show at galleries. And that part of my art making grew as well.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

The best aspect of being an artist is to be able to love what I do for a living. Of course, there is a lot of figuring out. But the journey itself can be fun and rewarding because the process of artmaking is really fun for me. I also think as a creative I have a lot more space to grow and change. And I am looking forward to that.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ayakakeda.com
• Instagram: @ayakakeda
• Facebook: @ayakakedaart
• Linkedin: @ayakakeda
• Twitter: @ayakakeda