(Hiroyuki) So Ted, I’m really excited to chat with you about art and life. It’s been a while. I’ve known you for years. I don’t even remember how I got to know you. My oldest memory of you was seeing your works at art fairs. I kept noticing your work for their immediacy, tactile presence and the magnetic attraction.

(Ted) It has been a while! Haha! Yes, we have indeed known one another for years. I remember when I first encountered your work. It was at Edward Albee's place. We both did his residency; mine after yours. He had a catalogue of your work at the Barn in Montauk. The following year I visited him in the city and he had a wall-mounted piece of yours in his apartment. That must have been in 2008 or '09! Anyway, in many ways we seem to have circled similar terrain, both in our practices and in many respects in our lives.

How are you? How is the East End? What are you working on these days? We certainly have had quite the year! Wow! In many ways it was a good year. How was it for you?

(HH) Wow. I’m glad that you got to see the pieces Edward Albee had. He picked nice ones. He was such a supporter of arts. I did quite a few art residencies before we had kids. I think art making within a supportive community can be great since we are social beings and the imaginative process can take off in a stimulating environment with time and space.

Studio-wise, going back to paintings a few years ago has done quite a bit in expanding my perspectives in approach and method. I’ve always painted on sculptures but working on 2D surfaces really made me see what 3D expression can do as much as what 2D surfaces can. So I’m sort of driven by the various dynamics emerging both from 2D and 3D and in between, not quite knowing what general trajectory is emerging.

What about you?

(TL) Edward had some pretty interesting stuff in his collection. I was particularly fond of his David Ireland and John McLaughlin pieces. It was an honor to have him champion the work, right? He was the real deal and I miss him.

My work is really quite physical and I am aware that I have to maintain my body to be able to do the work. Because I work with salvage steel coming from automobiles, there is a lot of heavy lifting done. Plus the woodworking aspect--making the substructures--can be quite arduous physically. So for me, staying fit is a requirement. I have been an athlete my entire life, so it does come somewhat naturally. Haha! I know your work is demanding to make as well and I am happy to hear you are still swimming--that is an excellent way to stay ready for the work. Aside from the obvious physical benefits of being fit, there are some very good spiritual and mental advantages too!

My "practice " (I sort of hate that term) is both highly defined and very open-ended. Strange sounding, but it works for me. I develop some fairly strict rules within to work and then set forth to break those boundaries without "cheating" the original structures. I am interested in the nature of human perception. There is a lot to it.

Work which is flat does not change when viewed from different positions while work with dimensional form can appear differently depending on the viewing perspective. Both have intriguing qualities and I actively pursue them both for what they are and what they can be. One to the things I like about making work is the power of the transformative and how our perceptions can change.

My studio process is fairly straightforward. I invent games, play them out, and see what happens. Tell me about how you work? How do you begin work?

In this photo of Edward’s apartment, you can see one of my pieces along the right wall. Its all-red and made from salvage steel from an old Volvo. Attached is also another photo of it.

(HH) Ah, great. A nice piece of yours. He could build a museum with his collection. I remember seeing his place in Montauk and I was impressed with his collection there too. By the way, I believe these two pieces are the ones of mine he has.  

(HH) And about the making process, I guess I don’t really have a fixed approach. But it seems that, to begin, I engage myself with some sort of visual brainstorm activity. Drawing has been my go-to method to find bits and pieces which develop into more organized dynamics. The resulting idea would develop into sculptures or prints.

With sculptures, the starting point would give me a basic shape to start. That would go through various stages to resolve different aspects. I mostly try to listen and feel what the elements are doing and how they are interacting and that prompts me to respond. After a while a cohesive harmony emerges, which literary speaks with its own presence.

Also sometimes I start with a fragment: a found object, a piece that didn’t quite develop on its own, byproducts of other pieces or an idea that emerged while making a different piece.

(HH) With paintings, the whole process from the beginning has an aspect of brain storming. The dialogue I develop with the surface builds the visual structure itself and it becomes an integral part of the piece. So there is an element of authenticity that’s inherent to the process, while it also incorporates an element of surprise which can only appear when materials react to each other. So I find the act of painting to be liberating, at the same time, it is also rooted to material reality. I think there are a lot of elements which parallel life itself in the process.

(HH) Can you elaborate on this: “I develop some fairly strict rules within to work and then set forth to break those boundaries without ‘cheating’ the original structures.”

(TL) The use of drilled holes of various diameters and types of bits in that work was very fascinating. It is both a serial approach to making as well as a result. Good work!

I have an intuitive approach to making work as well. But I also deploy various "systems" into that approach. What I mean by that is that I am very interested in how we recognize patterns. I make a way of working which begins with a base pattern or structure. I set forth to make that pattern both immediately unrecognizable and yet still visible. We sense, intuitively, the unseen pattern or form.

Here is a good example: I mill up a long section of laminated baltic birch, cutting the "stick" along one whole side to a predetermined angle. I put the section I cut off to the side for future projects. The remaining angle cut "stick" is then cut into smaller pieces with another matching angle on one other side. The overall lengths are random. Next I then assemble sets of three blocks into one form. I make groups of these with no order to predetermined schemes. I don't allow any redundancy between the groups. The small angle cut "blocks" form a pattern, which when seen individually are immediately recognizable and similar to one another, but when grouped together the pattern becomes unrecognizable. I then move into the next phases of making work. And there is a lot to those next phases.

Geometric Abstraction has always been of interest to me and I continue to use it. However, I don't use it in a linear way like most people do. At the same time my practice has many different things developing all at once. I might use curvilinear forms combined together in ways you stop seeing the fact each element has the same radial arc and at other times I use the example above. The work ranges from very precise to rather raw and unrefined. I tend to be somewhat mercurial in my nature and allow that aspect of my personality into my work. Hence, I make a bunch of different approaches, eschewing one codified methodology.

Does that make sense? Its sort of like a zoo--they're all animals, but just different species. I want my work to be sort of like a trip to the zoo!

(TL) I just wrapped up the very difficult job or gathering new materials at several local salvage yards. I got the tops off old pickup trucks. I have a good bit of processing to do with this stuff. They all have to have the adhesives/silicone tabs removed from the back of the materials. I then have to precision cut these sheets down. I keep the outer edges for other work. I use the precision cut sections for the precise work and the rough cut parts for the more raw work.

Currently I am experimenting with something raw.  

(TL) You also seem to have a somewhat random approach to making, also denying one singular approach. How does that work for you? How do you make choices about how to choreograph your approach and the work in situ?

(HH) So, basically, you start with conditioning the elements to operate within a certain framework. Once it forms a somewhat cohesive unit, it moves onto a next level by additional elements, which of course breaks the framework cultivated by the conditioning.

This is actually sort of similar in essence with what I do, in which, elements are conditioned to be on a sketch pad expressed with pencil marks. The resulting idea would then merge with additional elements without the restrictions of the conditioning.

Recognition of a pattern indicates that a pattern is recognizable. For instance, we recognize a circle in a concrete manner with a mathematical expression. Or, we recognize a certain form as a symbolic representation of something else. But, we also recognize art work, music, poetry, literature and so on as recognizably profound, liberating or resonating without recognizing it in a concrete term. As you phrased it, we somehow sense it.

I speculate that when we achieve that sort of expression, it has a potential to encompass something fundamental to our existence without truncating its mystery and unknown. This, again I speculate, allows us mortal beings to merge fully with the depth and width of the material reality which goes beyond our existence.

Now, regarding my approach being somewhat random, I think it might have to do with my belief that a work generally manifest itself as I observe elements intensely and facilitate their dynamics. I almost become one with the dynamics of the elements. So I might sense that it might be a little risky to stick with a routine which might cloud my perceptions to observe the unique dynamics, which are unique since we don’t stay at the same space and time. We change as individuals and as a collective and our circumstances also change. Paradoxically, I sense that this sort of caution is useful in grasping and examining what it is to live with some consistency rooted in humanity and nature. Also, I simply like to look at things from various locations. It’s just me working on sculptures, paintings or prints, but things are expressed differently due to the method’s propensity. I think I enjoy seeing various aspects of what I see as artistically meaningful. Also, a certain thing might be expressed better in one mode or another. I also think learning about various methods informs each method as well. Making is hard, you know? At least it is for me. I try to be flexible and adaptable.

Now, your approach seems very intriguing. Your dialogue with forms and materials starts as you salvage those seasoned materials with such physicality. Perhaps such engagement at the early stage allows or necessitates your use of guidelines or systems without stifling the liveliness. It seems to work very well as I can see in the fantastic results.

Looks like some exciting things are happening in your studio. There is always a satisfying feeling to successfully capturing raw elements for me. How do you see where you are in your path of studio practice? Any new things emerging?

(TL) My work, my life, philosophies, aspirations, struggles, joys, heartbreaks are all one-and that is me. It is impossible for me to completely separate them as they all inform on each other. Over the years I have certainly gotten better at compartmentalizing things so they don't necessarily bleed all over everything else. This ability to create space has helped me be a better father, husband, son, and probably artist. Life can be messy and keeping the mess somewhat contained to the situation at hand can be beneficial.

I live a clean life. I no longer drink or use mind altering substances and haven't for many decades now. I eat healthfully and, as we talked about earlier, exercise many days a week. What does this have to do with my work? Everything. I find when I can calm my body, my mind follows, and eventually my soul is touched by all of this as well. Working is hard, physically demanding, and there are many people involved in the results of my work--galleries, institutions, collectors, curators, and sometimes students. The studio work alone is a lot, but I have been blessed with a certain degree of success as well. Maintaining my boundaries on all levels is important. I don't want undue influence from one area to seep into another. Being a grounded, well rounded and balanced person helps with all of this. I work to find myself and what is meaningful to me.

Earlier I mentioned I am mercurial. Maybe I should explain that a bit more. What I mean is I hold nothing to be precious in what I do. In any way. I allow myself to explore and because I have no hierarchy in my work, I make no preferences. I allow myself to move between issues, materials, modalities, concerns, aesthetics, and philosophical considerations. It's sort of like tasting food. If you eat the same things all the time, that is your eating experience. I love food and like to eat all sorts of things as long and as I don't overdue anything or do too much of a certain thing, I feel good in my body, mind, and soul.

When I was younger, I was quite ambitious. Perhaps it was a holdover from the competitive sports I did through college. That drive or quality eventually found its way into my studio. That was not good! It infected my work and it took a long time to remove it. Now it is gone, I feel quite at peace with myself, however, I do have to remain vigilant to its return. I used to have high demands on myself and the work. I no longer care about creating demands. I have to say I quite enjoy making the work and if something or nothing happens as a result I am pretty much fine with that. Not totally, but I am getting better at letting go of my expectations. What do they say, "poco a poco!" Little by little.

How about you? You have always struck me as a fairly calm and balanced person. Is that just my projection or is this really the way you are? How do you find your balance between life, work, family, career, or whatever? Life is marvelous. If you allow it, it will completely illuminate you. We do have shadow sides and it can be quite interesting to explore these aspects of ourselves. Don't you think?

(HH) Well, balancing is hard I must admit. I also try to eat well, and I don’t drink or do drugs (something I had to learn with some efforts). There are things I’ve found through my studio practice. Some of the things you have already mentioned—like, you don’t cultivate hierarchy in what you see, all things are interconnected, and you have to be ready for any impulse whether it’s external or internal. There needs to be a great degree of honesty in seeing and fairness in perceiving in order to sense the dynamics of the elements in my studio. And every time I somehow arrive at an expression that resonates profoundly, the process makes me realize that I merely facilitate the arrival. There is a sense of humility and a reason to be optimistic in being a part of the process that taps into a realm of unknown and to be rewarded with something that reflects who we are as humans.

Now, one way or the other, many artists come to recognize that the world is run by an abusive hierarchy with efficiency, productivity, obedience and so on as priorities in serving the core of the authoritarianism. The framework itself and its imperatives go against what we regard as optimum conditions for making art.

This imposes an existential questions for artists, or it should, I think—if we examine the meaning of truly serving humanity and nature. As artists, we are certainly obligated to commit to our work. We establish our environments to do our work. How do we, then, reconcile the difficulty of working within the framework, which negates our ways of connecting to humanity and nature—and in many ways, negates humanity and nature themselves?

Being well physically, and compartmentalizing our roles to subsist at all and etc. are necessary steps to remain humans. I’m glad that you mentioned those and I totally understand.

But when we look at things outside of our studio with our honest eyes as we do in our studios, we are bound to notice that we live in a world where bombs are being dropped to spread “democracy”, corporate crimes are committed in the name of “freedom” to profit and conspiracies to exploit and subjugate are codified in the name of “justice”. If we don’t see all that, we could be forced to be embellishments of the empire just as the court painters of the past, or artists for the religious establishment of feudalism.

I do struggle with this. It’s been years since I started to write about the structural impediments of capitalism and imperialism in order to share, learn and understand about the topics. I see it as a part of connecting dots in my studio, for the same reason you find it important to regard all you do as a part of the making process.

I do feel the sense of urgency in it since the ongoing momentum could choke creativity and imagination out of our lives, leaving us to choose merely from multiple questions provided by the establishment, which would force us to be stuck in the capitalist cage.

I also do feel that how we approach art can be a key to turn the tide. But such a momentum can only grow constructively with understanding of its importance by the general public.

Anyway, those are some aspects of my mental-scape today.

Let me thank you for having this conversation with you.

(HH) I’m bringing back some of my older vocabularies in a new context. It’s interesting how a familiar way becomes a part of a different sort of expression. Things don’t get easier in my studio but I do recognize the passage of time and I think my proficiency in using my vocabularies is useful in building something that’s more complex, yet viscerally graspable.

(HH) Here is another piece, which I almost abandoned a while ago. But somehow it picked up the momentum again and I finished it recently. The time works differently in studio. Things can connect in funny ways under different contexts.

(HH) I feel that you have a more consistent approach in terms of the materials and forms. Yet, I do realize that there are so many layers and varying perspectives to your works, which keep each work unique and strong. And hearing you talk about the work has given me more appreciation for the already great work of yours.

(TL) You woke up early today! Haha!

One of the things I have been doing lately is limiting the amount of news media I take in. At 57 years old, I am old enough to remember when the "news" was really news and not the spin machine it has become. It is unfortunate, but the old axiom of "if it bleeds, let leads" is more evident than ever. There are agendas by all of the news outlets and they vary from somewhat exposed to totally exposed. But make no mistake about it, all media has a bias and that serves their interests, not yours.

I find that a brief survey provides me with enough information to "know" what I need to "know." The more I steep myself in it, the more deeply it penetrates me and I find it deeply unsettling because there are so positive actions which can be taken to remediate these "news" situations. Does that mean I am in denial about circumstances and conditions, absolutely not. I am well informed but choose to be on the side of the equation which takes positive action over emotional hostility to the conditions. The emotions generated by too much toxic information are killing us. Literally.

I am happy to go into the studio and work. I am happy to have a peaceful home life. I am happy to find ways to be of service to others.

Last year I had a big studio year. That work flowed early into this year too. Last year I had several major solo exhibitions and one big art fair presentation in Paris. This year I have one solo exhibition and a few group projects. So I am busy. It's good for me to have work to do. It can create a lens, focusing my attention and efforts more. Next year will also be quite busy with a large solo exhibition in Paris along with an accompanying catalogue and there is a possibility of a new book forthcoming on the work. It will be a "mid career" survey. Haha! It feels unusual to say I am at some midpoint in my life, but I guess I am. I might even be a little past that point!

But even with all of these engagements, the work leads. I have my ideas of how I want things to be, but the work often has other ideas. It comes down to a simple decision. Who leads? I made the decision years ago to be of service to my work and not the other way around. Serving the work leads to infinite possibilities while it servicing me becomes quite narrow and shallow. So I let it lead. It sets the tempo, creates the rhythm and cadence. It writes the content. My duties are straightforward. My job is to advocate for the work--it won't be seen in my studio all by itself. I have to protect it, get it places, make sure it is handled appropriately. The work is the work. It is totally on me to be a professional. This is my career, and not only my avocation, but the basis of my sole vocational income. It's a delicate balance. I don't want the work to be tarnished by my stuff (like my financial requirements or emotional baggage) so I have to find ways to remain clean and clear of that stuff when I go into the studio. The studio is a pristine, sacred space and it can be made "dirty" metaphysically pretty easily. This is part of the reason I eat well, live cleanly, and keep my overall media exposure limited.

What about you? I know you are very active with social justice issues. How do you keep that from entering your studio practice? Your work has stillness and quietness which seems unaffected by the tumultuous stuff happening in the world today. Can you elaborate on this a little?

(HH) Well, when I was growing up, I was eaten alive by helplessness, fear and anger of being caged in what I perceived as an unconditional framework of hypocrisy. I was not well aware of the actual dynamics of exploitation and subjugation, but I could sense the nature of the structural imperatives.

But art has liberated me from the condition. I’ve found ways to visually articulate the significance of how we perceive our world and found a way to be part of the community by sharing with others. I found my own space on the planet where I was losing all my hope.

But after a while, my ability to connect dots within a given framework—something I cultivated through my studio practice, also started to reveal what our world is actually made of.

And this time I’m capable of stepping back a little and actually seeing how the rich and powerful have constructed a system of hierarchy that structurally locks us into its exploitive mechanism. It’s rather staggering that the accumulation of the power is so huge that the dominant class can enforce its ideas by selling and buying entire social institutions. The power of wealth can literally construct “reality” that doesn’t reflect our needs, facilitating measures that serve the ruling class. This even makes discussing fundamental matters that concern us greatly very difficult, because our social relations are not based on our best interests. We do not stand on a common ground.

In a way, our minds and our circumstances have been colonized. We are constantly forced to fight among ourselves over artificially scarce resources. We are forced to swallow our predicaments by economic necessity, and we are forced to abide by the code of silence by fear. The double speak we regularly hear from the establishment constantly reminds us of our alienated condition from ourselves, each other and nature.

This is bad for our species and it is bad for art as well, like I already said. So being conscious about it is a part of how I live and somehow it becomes a part of my work as well. Knowing that there are people who oppose the path we are taking is a source of empowerment and it also enriches my understanding of ourselves and the world. And this is my way of working with humanity and nature instead of being forced to work with “humanity” and “nature” according to how they are defined by the establishment. But like I said, it is challenging at times.

But, ultimately, as you said, work really guides me in my studio. When I work, I empty my head, and what happens is really not within my control.

The way you work with colors and surfaces is as great as the way you work with the forms in space. The harmony really makes the work speak with life. And the approach is something I can relate to in my work as well.

Thanks again for this dialogue Ted. I’ve really enjoyed it and you’ve said some really thought provoking things, and I’m sure that I’ll be thinking about them. Anything else you would like to add?

(TL) Only thing can can say now is, harkening back to something someone once said, “we don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are.”

Thank you so much! Lovely conversation!