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PW: So I was going to ask, one of the more recent use of materials has been the charcoal?

RO: Oh, yes, that's another thing, that was a change.

PW: Talk about that.

RO: So about, probably more than ten years ago, probably twelve or fifteen, I said, okay, everybody is using the same materials to paint, they're using acrylic or oil, I said, "I want to change up what I do. I want to separate myself from what everybody else was doing." I said, "How do you do that?" You change it in terms of format, you change in terms of imagery, you change in terms of process. And I thought, well, what can I do? I said, okay, I'm going to do something that's very unusual. I'm going to take a drawing tool and use that as my medium for making paintings. Drawing tools are used for paper or whatever flat surface. And so what I did was I said, in the tradition of my culture, especially the Japanese side of it, you have an ink block, you drop water with it, you thin it, and that's how you do your calligraphy, and that's how you do these scroll paintings. I said, "That makes sense, so what do I do?" So I said, "Well, how can I do this?" So I was experimenting with things, how can I take chalk, and I would grind chalk down into powder, charcoal or whatever, and then use it in a way. Well, it doesn't have any body at all, you put down, it flakes and moves away. And so I thought, well, I'll use water. And water and chalk do not mix because there's an ingredient in chalk and charcoal that doesn't allow that. So then I used paint thinner, oh, all of a sudden the chalk is now dissolving. And so I can use it in a way where then it could be used, if I were to use a lot of paint thinner and bunch of powdered charcoal, mix it up, I could wash it out, just like doing paint. So I said, "I'm going to do that." So I adopted that, I did a whole body of work, and it was basically black and white pieces on canvas, and this would go up to San Francisco, that gallery.

So then I took the body of work, all black and white pieces about this size, they sold out the show. Because I thought people would want color, people associate the emotional quality of color in paintings. But for some reason, black and white pieces were, all of a sudden, I could not believe it, the people that were then, they say, "Well, we have all these people, they would rent paintings." When Newsom was running for governor, then there was a person who lives in Pacific Heights. They had rented a painting from the Fort Mason Center, they had enough for a reception they had for Newsom when he was running for governor. Eventually they took the painting back, and they missed it and they eventually bought the painting. Then what happened was the last time, was that I was taking a bunch of paintings, because I was going to have a show. You know where the cafeteria part of the SF MoMA is? You walk in, it's the ground floor, tables around, and there's walls, and I talked to them, I said, "Is it possible for me to go ahead and show my work there?" Because the artist gallery was running that part of it. And they said, "Ah, sure, absolutely." So they scheduled me, so I did this body of work, especially of big pieces, more horizontal because the spaces call for that. So then I took the work up there, and they called me and said, "Oh, by the way, we'd like you to do a couple more of these longer pieces. We just sold this piece that was supposed to go up there." I said, "Oh, okay." So then I find out later on, that when Obama had come to the peninsula, and they were having this million dollar lunch where all the CEOs of Facebook, all the ones that came from this very, very important collector and what do you call these people who use their money to do things and buy things? Anyway, he was having a luncheon for Obama, and he invited all these CEOs of these big new startup companies shown there. They were the ones that bought the painting on the wall. Unbelievable, unbelievable. They never said anything about the work on the walls, but I have to assume they're going to mill around a little bit. I mean, who would have expected that? But just being at the, again, right place at the right time.

PW: Yeah, this is extraordinary.

<End Segment 30> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.