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PW: Well, this is kind of the little closing kinds of questions that I usually ask. What do you think are some of the longer term effects that being in, living through World War II and having family that were immigrants experiencing the incarceration, all of those things. How do you think that's affected you personally?

RO: The one thing I've come to understand, especially with doing something that's very, very personal. Even with teaching, as much as I love teaching, and I taught for thirty-seven years in the public school system, and I loved every moment. That's a relationship and you try to do the best possible job you can and try to instill the whole idea about what art is, because I think we come in with a sense about what we believed to be the case. And I think that it's too easy to assign assignments and so on that are maybe in many ways unrelated to this whole business of understanding the cultural aspects of what art has done for people. I've taken on that responsibility with my own work, that I'm wanting to go ahead and make sure that the work that I produce is not a... it's about questioning what I do. I often have a conversation with myself, but as I'm making work, understanding that I have a particular view about what I want to do also that I want to go ahead and move my work forward to become a better painter. This is why I call myself a practicing painter, because I think it's something that, the word "artist" comes with a lot of ego attached to and so on, so I like to use the term as, I'm a practicing painter, that's what I am. Practiced my craft and that's what I do.

So I have these conversations with myself about as you're making work, and you come up with ideas about them, if this is then, if you're okay with it, because you will know if it's done for the right reasons or the wrong reasons. And because you're making this very personal decision about what you're doing, it's very easy to be influenced by so many things that changes and moves you away from who you are, that I don't know artists are able to understand themselves that way. So I found that then we have... because there's no doubt that whatever we do, we have expectations of ourselves. That's understood, that's the nature we have. Plus then the fact then that other people have expectations of you and who you are, and what you do. So there are all these things, so as you then move into something that is so private and so personal, can we then move from that to something that's a little bit more? Because I think too often what happens is that with the expectations, we have a tendency to compromise ourselves and stay in the same place that we don't allow ourselves because the motivation about who we are, what we think is right, or maybe it's because of the fact that your work sells or whatever. I'm a firm believer that I have this one chance, and trying to move myself from where I am, because I look at my sketchbooks, I said, "Gee, this is where I was ten years ago, fifteen years ago. I never expected to be painting the paintings that I... and I owe that to myself and I tell a lot of young kids, "What happens is that you have to go ahead and reach that point where you are venturing forward however it may be. It may be full of mistakes, it may be full of not understanding and so on. But you've made that attempt, that has now moved you away from where you were before, and that's that expectation." So then that's the discussion that I have, because I know that if I'm doing something, all of a sudden, I've seen this before, or I've done this, or something. And so I try to move myself and present some questions about what I believe my work, how it should move and what it should represent. I'm not sure about that, and I think the idea of having questions is very important for me. I come in here and I pull my car in here and I'm shut away from the world.

And all I have is that and the... there was a moment where I used to tell my beginning students, I said, "I want you to take a pencil and write your name on this piece of paper." And they would write it very legibly because I said, "Write your name on it." I said, "Okay," and erase it, "write your name again. Erase it, write your name again. Erase it, let's do it fifty times. The paper is torn, there are smudges, you can hardly tell, and guess what's happened to your name? It's just a mark." I said, "That's where I want you to be. Now we can start talking about art and where we are and where we think we should go." Because we're always back over here not wanting to make mistakes, not wanting to do things that are kind of... not understanding, and you have these motivations and reasons why you stay there. It's only when you start to move a little bits, it may be a process, it may be a material, I don't know what. And this is why I had moved into chalk, and the fact that I'm using a drawing tool as the material for my paintings. And so that even though people look at... because it's on canvas, assume it's a painting. So then I tell them no, if you consider it chalk or if you consider it charcoal or whatever, as a painting process, you'll probably say no, that's a drawing tool.

And I want to go and move my work where I'm questioning these things about what I do so that it opens up a whole volume of thoughts that I have. Because I know where I've been before, and I know that I can do this, and I know I'm successful at it. But then again, I have one chance at it. I'm going to (be gone) in a few years, I want to see how far this can go. And I think that's basically the motivation because it gives me purpose to come down here and work. And that's what I think an awful lot, otherwise I'd be sitting at home getting fat and mowing the lawn or whatever, so on. You don't do those kind of things, but this is a very personal kind of special moment that I think art is that, whether you're a writer, poet, composer or whatever. People say, "Think out of the box." We don't do that, we don't think out of the box. We'd like to, we appreciate people who do that, but we don't do that for ourselves because we're limited by all the expectations that people have on who we are and where we are in life with the job, family, kids, and so on. So I'm fortunate to be in the place I am today, and the fact that I have this space here, and the means to be able to go ahead and talk to myself and try to go ahead and motivate myself and make some work that I believe is important, important to me. I don't expect people to understand what I do or like what I do, but every so often, someone comes along and says, "Hey, Robert, I kind of like your work, but I don't understand it." And so then if you can have that moment of conversation, in five minutes, they say, "Oh." So then they walk out the door, "Let's go to Robert's studio." So they already have a built in commitment to what they believe they want to do. I don't ask people to come up, they come up because it's either a social issue or gathering, or they want to look at work. And so if I can be a little part of the advancement of Fresno's culture just a tiny, tiny bit, that's important. That's why... I don't know if that answers, more than you want to hear? [Laughs]

PW: That's the most beautiful way to end this interview.

RO: Oh, thank you.

PW: Thank you so much for your hospitality.

RO: Yeah, you're certainly welcome. I've enjoyed it very much.

<End Segment 34> - Copyright © 2023 Densho. All Rights Reserved.