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AI: That, so that brings us to... we're at the late-'70s here. And, as you had mentioned, you had been kind of drawn into the first Day of Remembrance that was held here at the Puyallup Fairgrounds. Did you actually attend that? That was in fall of '78.

RS: No. That's, school was on. I couldn't go.

AI: That's right. That's right. But it wasn't -- it was around that time, also, that you began working on the "Minidoka" series. Is that right?

RS: Right. I, I brought back all of the diaries, and I asked -- her name was Akiko -- to begin the translations. And as, the first thing I did was gave her the diary that had Pearl Harbor day in it. And those were the first two weeks that she gave me. And I read them, and I knew immediately that there was enough material there to, to perhaps do a series of paintings based on the diary entries. So I decided that, again, to keep it within that, that Japanese woodblock appearance. I also remember a conversation I had with Bea, my ex-wife, about these paintings because she felt that I was really making a mistake to, to keep them looking like that. And her reason was that I was perpetuating a stereotype. And I thought that that was a certain risk that I was taking, but I still wasn't ready to, to give all of that up, to give all of that appearance up. And so, as it turns out, I think she was right. But I still think that there was justification for not doing that as well. So I decided to keep this diary series that was done from 1980 to '83 in that style of the woodblock print. And so as the entries came in I would do paintings. And I think over a period of time I ended up doing twenty-five paintings in that initial diary series.

And the show was traveling around, usually in groups of about ten to twelve paintings. And as the show would go from venue to venue, certain paintings would sell and I felt compelled to replace those paintings to maintain the integrity of the exhibition. So as it turns out I ended up doing four Pearl Harbor day paintings, four variations. They were each quite different quite from each other, but there were certain themes, I think, that for some reason people were more interested in. But also, what was interesting were all the paintings that ended up selling the last were the ones that had barbed wire in them, because people were not buying the paintings for what they were about. They were sort of following, falling for the strategy that was intended on my part to make them very beautiful paintings, but to sublimate the internment theme in the paintings so that only upon discussion that would become evident. But out of the twenty-five paintings, I believe only seven asked for the diary entries that inspired the painting. And it's amazing when you think about putting out that kind of money for a painting that you would want all the information that was available, and certainly the entries were available, but they just left them on the table. Actually, the last painting that sold, I actually had several offers to paint out the barbed wire and that they would buy the painting. And by barbed wire, I'm talking about one line that was one inch long that had two vertical slashes that couldn't have been more than a quarter inches long, buried into the painting. So that became a very interesting observation over a course of three years as these paintings traveled around.

<End Segment 52> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.