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RS: I did a painting of William Burroughs, who was a neighbor of mine. And Burroughs lived in Lawrence for seventeen years, and was a good friend, and so I did a painting of him wearing a kimono with his, with a gun, because he was a real gun collector. He had all these loaded guns in his house. And you know, William Burroughs tried to shoot an apple off his wife's head and shot her between the eyes and killed her and then lived in exile until the statute of limitations ran out and then came back to this country. But, so I went over to his house and I asked him to pick his favorite weapon and he pulled out this derringer that he had just bought. And it was one of those old powder and ball loaded things, you know, it takes forever to load. And I knew he wasn't capable of accidentally loading that pistol. And so I was doing a photo essay along with the paintings of all these people that I was painting. So I asked him, I said, "Bill, would you take that pistol and point it at me? And he says, "No." And I said, "Why not?" And he says, "I can't do it." And I knew why he couldn't do it, because of the reference to his wife and everything. And I was also going to ask him to put on this kimono and wear that gangster hat that he always wears. And he agreed to do it, finally. So he sat down and he put on this kimono and he put on his gangster hat and held the gun at me like this. And he was just shaking. So I was snapping off these pictures. And every picture I have of him the gun is blurry because it's shaking so much because he's so nervous. But I felt safe because I knew it'd take him forever to load that pistol and he couldn't possibly load it accidentally. [Laughs] So I did a painting of him with that pistol, wearing a kimono with all these cats on it, because he's a cat lover. And I didn't realize that until right after he moved to Lawrence he came over to the house for dinner. And he rang the doorbell, opened the door, and there's William Burroughs with this hat on with this cane, that is actually a gun, and he comes into the house. And he comes into the house, a three-piece suit, a vest, comes into the house and he sees my cat and he immediately fell to his knees and started rolling on the floor talking cat gibberish. And I thought he had lost his mind. And his friend that was there said, "Bill loves cats." And I found out he had seven cats, when I went over to his place. And so I wanted to sort of mark that in this painting and so I painted all of his cats on this kimono that he was wearing.

And, so anyway, so I did these photo essays along with the paintings and called that series the "Return of the Yellow Peril." And actually showed that series of paintings in New York, along with all the photographs that I took of all these people as well. And that series of photographs -- not many people know this -- but I continued that series with people, it started out to be famous performance artists, going like this with their eyes and buck teeth, you know. And I started shooting all these people like that and then it just sort of moved into some famous artists as well and I showed that whole series several times, but I keep forgetting that I had done that because I, I just sort of put them away and nothing ever came of them. But anyway, so that was the series "Return of the Yellow Peril." And I also, in the exhibition, put up copies of some of the articles that would come up periodically in the newspapers from various people living in Kansas City or Lawrence and their comments about the U.S. auto industry. You know, very racist sorts of comments. So there was a real story that went along with that exhibition. There was a lot to talk about. And I found, I found myself becoming more involved and intrigued with this idea of being able to talk about some issue as when you show the work, as sort of thickening the whole experience for everybody.

AI: I wanted to return to an earlier question about some possible differences in reaction from audiences or of viewers of your art in cities like Seattle, or on the West Coast where there are larger Asian and Asian American populations than say in the Midwest or even in the East. Did you notice any substantial difference in response or reaction?

RS: Yeah, there was a quite a difference, and we might be getting ahead of ourselves, but I think taking "American Diary" around the country was the best example where it became, either you take one, one body of work with one central theme and you expose that to all these different audiences. Because a lot of my other experiences were based upon different sets of paintings and so it was hard to tell whether it was the work or the circumstances, or the crowd that was generating a particular kind of response.

AI: Okay, so when we get to that point, we'll want to return to that.

RS: Yeah, we'll talk about it at that point.

<End Segment 58> - Copyright © 2003 Densho. All Rights Reserved.