Renowned artist Satoru Abe welds together copper patterns every day to make new creations, often much to his delight

Ask sculptor Satoru Abe what the secret to a long life is, and he has no single answer.

“There’s no secret,” he said.

A renowned Hawaii artist with a career spanning seven decades, Abe, 91, continues to create art every day. Every morning, he reads the newspaper during breakfast to keep his mind engaged. He drinks three cans of beer a day. He also swears by Sun Chlorella, an over-the-counter supplement made from single-celled green algae that he says is high in antioxidants. He’s taken the supplements daily for years to counteract the effects of smoking — which he did for 20 years, then quit, then started again at the age of 60 — and quit again as of last year.

Abe takes no prescription medication, though he is borderline pre-diabetic. He practiced yoga until about a year ago, and still manages to get around.

“I’m waiting for marijuana,” he said.

Abe, a painter and sculptor with numerous honors, commissions and exhibits under his belt, continues to create beautiful, ethereal copper sculptures from dawn to dusk at his home studio in Kaimuki and to play an active role in the arts community.

He is one of the prominent artists highlighted in the Honolulu Museum of Art’s “Abstract Expressionism: Looking East From the Far West,” which runs through Jan. 1.

Abe’s sculptures can be seen throughout Hawaii, from the tree-shaped “Eternal Garden” in front of the First Hawaiian Center in downtown Honolulu to the recently unveiled “Sunburst” at Daniel K. Inouye International Airport. His works are also on permanent display at the Honolulu Museum of Art, state Capitol and numerous public schools, including his alma mater, McKinley High School.

The nonagenarian has a famous saying — that he remembers a time when he was young, naive and had a dream to be an artist. For 70 years Abe has been living that dream, and he doesn’t plan to ever retire.

“I’m going to die making art,” he said.

Every day, sitting at a sun-dappled work table on the lanai next to a lush garden, he etches and cuts patterns out of copper and welds them into new creations. The pieces, in various stages of completion, are abstract works combining leaf, branch, sun, moon and other motifs of nature that seem to reach up toward the heavens.

He works by intuition and just lets the creativity flow.

“Now I start without any conception,” he said. “So I pick up whatever scrap of metal, stand it up and make something. And I surprise myself. The surprise is, I’ve never done something like this.”

Born in 1926 in Honolulu, Abe ventured to New York in the late 1940s to pursue a career in art. When he first got there, he went straight to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, took out a canvas and copied Rembrandt’s “Head of Christ” in one sitting. He gave the painting away but is hoping it will resurface one day.

With the positivity that comes with youth, he was determined to become an artist. He worked as a dishwasher at an Italian restaurant at night while attending the Art Students League in New York during the day, and studied with George Grosz, Louis Bouche and Jon Corbino.

It was during a smoke break in the hallway at school that he met Ruth Tanji — “an angel,” as he put it — his wife-to-be for 51 years. He was studying art; she was studying fashion.

They married and moved back to Hawaii, where they had a daughter, Gail, then returned to New York and back to Hawaii again. Ruth died in 2001. Abe has one daughter, architect Gail Goto, and two grandsons.

Goto said, “He’s an eternal optimist in every situation.”

Upon his second stint in New York, Abe said he got his lucky break from Dorothea Denslow, owner of the Sculpture Center in Manhattan, who let him use a studio to create his sculptures. He spent hours there, creating the first sculpture he would sell at an art gallery in 1956.

In Honolulu, Abe was part of a group of artists from Hawaii who had lived in New York nicknamed the “Metcalf Chateau.” He credits one of the members, the late Isami Doi of Honolulu, as his mentor and inspiration.

Abe, in turn, has mentored many young artists in Hawaii, among them contemporary artist John Koga.

“I always enjoy his thoughts,” Koga said of Abe, recalling great times as a young artist hanging out with the Metcalf Chateau gang at their regular rendezvous at the former Wisteria Restaurant.

One piece of advice he got from Abe was, “You really can’t go wrong when it’s from the heart.”

“He’s definitely influenced me, without a doubt, at every level,” said Koga, who feels a responsibility in turn to mentor other artists in Hawaii.

Abe remains just as prolific as in younger years. On average he produces about 125 sculptures a year. In 2015, a really productive year, he created 350 pieces.

Looking back, he feels lucky to have made a living as an artist, a dream that he’s still living.

“I’m actually surprised at what I did,” he said.