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This year you illustrated the monthly numbers for our 2018 Hobonichi Whiteboard Calendar. How did it go?

Sasao

I couldn’t believe how fun it was.

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We were glad you were so excited to accept our offer. Artists have been eager to work with us in the past, but we’ve never gotten such a euphoric reaction.

Sasao

When I was with all of you that day, and you commissioned me to draw numbers, it was incredible.

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Incredible?

Sasao

A theme like “numbers” is much more fundamental than any regular subject. At least it is to me.

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What do you mean by that?

Sasao

When you asked me to draw numbers for the calendar, I was shaking. Actually shaking.

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We’re used to finding someone we’d like to work with and approaching them for the job each year. But we don’t think much about the actual creation of the numbers.

Sasao

I’ve been commissioned for calendars several times, and I’ve made all kinds of art. But I’d never been told to just focus on the numbers themselves.

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I remember artists telling us, at various points, that numbers were a difficult subject.

Sasao

I didn’t find it difficult at all.

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I see.

Sasao

It never felt difficult to me. It just made me happy.

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Is that what was making you shake?

Sasao

No, I wasn’t shaking from happiness at the time—I was shaking from fear. Numbers are like the sky. Anyone can draw the sky, and anyone can understand it.

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Yeah.

Sasao

That was enough to make me feel like I’d be exposed. Last year, when Akira Minagawa illustrated the calendar… I didn’t know him well, but when I saw his numbers I could instantly tell he was a great artist.

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I see...

Sasao

Although numbers have set forms, his showed an overwhelming sense of originality. There was a sense of wise humor behind them, like in the work of Saul Steinberg.

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Steinberg was famous for his line art.

Sasao

That day, when I got home, I sat here and wondered what the numbers would look like if Alberto Giacometti drew them. Or David Hockney. I had all these thoughts racing through my head.

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We knew you were excited about it, but we had no idea it was making such an impact on you in private.

Sasao

Then I wondered how I was going to do it. After thinking about it, I knew that all I could do was work within my own abilities. And this was what I came up with.

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Your number illustrations ended up being very orthodox; they don’t do anything outrageous to attract attention. The shapes are straightforward. Looking at them, it’s clear that you faced these illustrations head-on. And we could tell at a glance that it was your work.

Sasao

I don’t actually know whether they turned out or not. But as I drew them, I thought, “Numbers are a self-portrait.”

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Numbers are a self-portrait?

Sasao

When you make a self-portrait, you must put all of yourself into it.

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How so?

Sasao

In other words, a self-portrait shows you everything you’ve cultivated in yourself up to that point. You’ll see it all for what it is, and if you have nothing, you’ll see that you have nothing.

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I didn’t realize self-portraits and numbers shared a common thread like that.

Sasao

And that’s what made the project scary.

For better or worse, I looked at it with that new viewpoint—that this would be the only self-portrait I would be able to make. So I drew, and I had fun, and these numbers are the result.

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Now that you mention it, I can see the way your numbers are a reflection of you—and how the numbers in previous years have been reflections of their own artists.

Sasao

Right? Each one is a self-portrait.

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We’re excited, every year, to see the 12 numbers the artist has drawn for us. I guess that excitement comes from the way the artist is revealed in those numbers.

Sasao

Whether my numbers ended up functioning as a self-portrait or not, it’s incredible enough that numbers could give someone so much joy.

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Yes.

Sasao

Even my wife, who never compliments my art, saw the numbers and told me they looked beautiful. She said, “I can see your entire life in these.”