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AI: So you were here, at UW, in the graduate school, and you were teaching, and so then what developed?

RS: Well, I think, again, I mentioned the big changes, and certainly one of the biggest changes had to do with the kind of art that I was making. Because the University of Washington was so adamant about people being modernist painters, and certainly had to do with the people that I was working with as well, chose to work with, I was doing these big charcoal drawings of abstract expressionistic -- you know, with erasers and sort of the look at the time, I think. But I was also being very influenced by a group of my fellow graduate students that had come from different parts of the country. Ron Gasowski, in particular, who had come from the University of Michigan, was a ceramic sculptor and was very much involved with the whole funk ceramics movement that was going on at the time, even in the ceramics area, with Howard Kottler. And I just, I fell in love with, with what he was doing. I fell in love with the whole attitude of, that he brought with him into his studio, which connected up to a lifestyle. And I think for the first time I sort of recognized lifestyle and images of the art that was being made, that there was a connection that sort of presented a broader picture of a possibility of everything. And John Dowell who was a African American lithographer, who was from Tyler in Philadelphia, and what he bought. He introduced me to John Coltrane and jazz and Bob Mackie was in the sculpture program, and Jim McManus who is now a Ph.D art historian in California, but there were a lot of people that happened to be very vital at the time that brought a lot of different things to the table, not only artistically, but socially. And it was that connection between what one did in their studio and how one lived their lives that was so fascinating to this naive sort of person that never saw things in that way. And so it was an awakening for me from every standpoint. And because we had such a close, closely-knit group of people, not just artistically, but socially that it seemed like I reinvented myself weekly. And I'm sure a lot of that had to do with growing up in this very conservative Japanese American family, 'cause I know my parents couldn't keep up with me. They couldn't figure out what happened to this person they thought that they knew, because every day I shifted out from underneath them.

So, so my paintings became very influenced by funk ceramics. And there was something so liberating, so cathartic about the sort of anti-intellectual attitude that funk ceramics had on one hand, and then on the other hand, but my drawings were being abstract expressionistic, and we talked about them completely differently. So, again, this polarization between what I was doing with drawings and paintings and philosophically, where was I? And I remember going to this one seminar and being asked what my artistic influences were and then I said, I used the example Rembrandt and Andy Warhol. And half in jest but then realizing that maybe I was being quite serious or revealing when I was saying that. So, I started to run into problems in that it was a time when we were all entering these shows, these summer festivals and I was winning prizes in drawings and paintings, and for doing two completely different kinds of images. But of course, the people that were giving the prizes didn't know that, didn't care about that. But there was something, I mean, it probably would have been a healthier situation if I was being reinforced in one and not the other, but I, so I kept doing both. And I was trying to resolve the difference by looking at people like Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns and thinking to myself, "Well, I can do these sort of painterly pop paintings." But at the time I was painting these big TV dinners and, again, probably one of the worst things that happened was that I was accepted into Northwest Annuals being reinforced for this sort of outlandish image. But I was having, also having a one-man show schedule, my first solo exhibition at the Earl Ballard Gallery. Do you remember that gallery?

MT: No.

RS: It was on Mercer Island and Frank Okada was the one that got me introduced to that gallery, but it was just all of those drawings. And it was on the basis of the drawings that Earl Ballard said, "Yeah, I'll give you your first show." So, again, I was being reinforced in two totally different -- and I'm doing these paintings, these sort of masochistic paintings of Rembrandt. I'm forging these Rembrandts and putting them within these really painterly sort of backgrounds and just trying to bring the two together. And it was around that time that I met Frank Okada. And Frank was terrific because he sort of introduced me to the JA art community and, and also introduced me to Chinatown. And at the time we used to go down to Art Louie's every Friday night. And I used to bring all my graduate student buddies with me, you know, Ron Gasowski, McManus, there was a whole group of us that'd go down to Art Louie's and Okada would show up. And we'd always end up getting into these really sort of heated art discussions. And it seemed like we were never having a good time unless we were sort of arguing about something.

And I remember one of the classic arguments that we had was Frank sort of saw himself among all these young impressionable painters that he was going to sort of teach all the ropes to. And Frank always said, "If you go to someone's opening, and they have hors d'oeuvres, and you eat those hors d'oeuvres, you have to tell them you like the show whether you like it or not." We used to say, "Frank, what are you saying?" And of course we felt you eat the hors d'oeuvres, and you tell them you don't like the show, because of truth and everything else. And we used to, every week, we'd bring this topic up and we'd scream at each other and so on. And of course, now, in retrospect, I think back and I think Frank was right in a way. [Laughs] And I find myself doing that very thing and sort of smile every time I do that. You know, I look at the work, because usually, having seen so much work now, you probably don't like ninety percent of what you see out there anyway. But you go there, and you eat the hors d'oeuvres and you just sort of grunt and say, "Oh, nice show," hoping that they won't remember you said that.

So, Frank was sort of the great guru of the group and I remember one time he had this dinner where John Matsudaira and Paul Horiuchi and some of the -- I remember I couldn't believe I was suddenly in this group, these distinguished, I mean, I felt like, I didn't even want to be there. I felt embarrassed being there. But Frank was that link. And from a very early day -- oh, I always considered him to be a mentor of sorts, because it wasn't, his work and mine couldn't be any more different and it really wasn't from that standpoint, but he taught me so much about, everything else about being an artist. I mean, he was sort of the, you know, he had the incredible studio, he had the incredible lifestyle, the music, the jazz. I mean, everything about all that was just so incredibly appealing that anything Frank did had an appeal to me. And so, again, it sort of upset all of my, my values that I had and caused me to re-examine everything, which I think is really sort of a healthy way of looking at the world.

<End Segment 32> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.