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AI: Well, let's see. About, was it about that same period, elementary school, when you had mentioned at another time, about how you started drawing things that you wished you could have, but that you couldn't have? Was that also in about grade school age? Or was that when you were a little bit older?

RS: That was probably in junior high, is my guess. And there were a lot of things that I couldn't possess that I wanted to, partially due to the fact that my parents couldn't afford it, partially due to the fact that my parents thought that they were foolish or too luxurious. But there were three things in particular. Number one was cowboy boots. It was a period that cowboy boots were really in fashion and some of my friends had a pair and I didn't. And, but my mother used to always tell me that they were unhealthy to wear because they would make your feet pointed, just like the shoes. So cowboy boots were one thing. Schwinn bikes. I had a bicycle but I didn't have Schwinn bike and Schwinn bikes had a particular kind of shape to the upper part of the frame that was just this really sexy kind of form. And the bike I had was nothing like that. And everybody in the neighborhood knew what a Schwinn bike was, and I wanted one. But, we couldn't afford it. And then the third thing was Red Ryder BB guns, was another thing that I wanted badly. But my parents wouldn't let me have that simply because it was a gun, and you could actually do harm with that, and never knowing that we had access to BB guns in the neighborhood because some of the other kids had them. And we used to go out and have BB gun fights unbeknownst to my parents, or know the dangers of actually doing that. But we actually were out there shooting BBs at each other. So, as a way of attempting to possess these items, I discovered that if I did drawings of them, realistic drawings, it would be the next best thing. I could possess surrogates of these objects. And so I remember doing drawings of the most expensive of cowboy boots, the best Schwinn bike, and the most expensive BB gun, with all the decorations on the handle and drawings of Red Ryder on it and all of that. So, not only was I able to possess them, in a way I possessed the best of what each of them had to offer. And so that was the first time that I realized the magic that art had, the potential magic that art contained for me.

AI: I wanted to ask you about the environment of your house. Did you have much art in your house? Or your, you mentioned earlier that your mother's brothers, three of them were commercial artists. I was just wondering what was around you?

RS: There was, there were paintings done by my uncles. And I think at one time or the other they would give my mother, their sister, some artwork that they had done, because frequently they would do the original artwork and it would photographed. And the photograph of the work would eventually be turned into the particular ad, or whatever, and there was no use for the original artwork which they retained. And so, I remember in particular this one painting that my Uncle George did of Seattle landscape, painting of the cityscape, that I always just thought was miraculous, it was just so well-done. So there were these sort of standards around the house. I always remember someone that was not my relative, but my Aunt Hideko, as I said, who was a Tsuboi, her brother, Roy, or Shozo he was called, was also a commercial artist. So not only people in our family, but very close to our family or through marriage, were also commercial artists. And he used to come over and we used to draw together. And to this day I have the drawings that he gave me back then. And he did a whole series of drawings of World War II airplanes. And again, that's something else that has entered into a lot of the paintings that I've done are images of World War II airplanes. And I'm positive that that appreciation came through that very early appreciation I had of his drawings of World War II fighter planes. And even when I look at them today through the eyes of one that's been teaching art for almost thirty-five years now, that those drawings really hold up and he was really good for his time. So I had these sort of role models and I had these wonderful examples around me, something to sort of shoot for.

AI: So you really grew up with this idea, this, examples of people in front of you who were adults actually making a living doing art.

RS: Right, showing me that it was possible. And none of them went to college, however. They went to Burnley art school, which is a two-year art school.

AI: Here in Seattle?

RS: Right. And so that created some friction later on between my father and I, who felt that he wanted me to go to college. And I wanted to go to college. I mean, I didn't even question that part of it, but strategically, he sort of argued that if one went to college one didn't go there to major in commercial art, one went to art school, which only was two years and a lot cheaper. So, but that's sort of ahead of the game.

<End Segment 13> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.