<Begin Segment 4>

AD: Tell us about when you were at the assembly center and you were painting and had the guy with the...

ET: Well, that was at assembly center. I was on top of the roof and tried to sketch some of the things. And next thing you know, there was a bayonet stuck on my back. And I don't think he would stab me or anything, it's just threatened me to get off of there. So I did, but at the same time, they were pretty nervous. Some of 'em are about the same age as I was. They were very, very nervous, because at night, same... I don't know whether it's the same fellow or not, but he yelled at something that moved, "Halt, halt," and the thing didn't respond, so he shot. And he shot and made sure that the movement was gone. It was really hard to see. Found out that he'd killed a cow right outside the camp. So that type of thing happened, and we kind of laughed about it. But it was not, it was serious as far as he was concerned.

AD: What was it like to paint with a gun at your back?

ET: Well, that's the chance you have to take, because we didn't have any camera to shoot anything. So best thing is... and eventually newspaper people came to look at them, and they wanted to publish some of those. The Seattle Times did that when we were in the assembly center. When we went to Minidoka, Oregonian was right there to even tell us, send stuff in to Oregonian.

AD: Give us, tell us a little bit of an introduction so that people that are watching it know who you are but maybe by saying, "I was a painter and I painted a lot of scenes"...

ET: Yeah. By then, of course, my work was that. It was camp artist, there were a number of us, five or six of us, and we are all on recreational area. So we were helping people to actually have a lot of fun exercising some of the hobbies and that kind of thing. Mine was painting, so I just kept on painting. And they supplied with all the material I needed, and I requisitioned some of the best material. I still have them yet today, some of 'em. It was just great. I never had the privilege of working with that good of material, but government furnished us with that. Then of course the town of Twin Falls heard about that, and the newspaper came to look at that. So we worked together that way with the press. And so our life was, in that way, it was very well blessed and kept ourselves from going nuts. [Laughs]

AD: Why was it important in terms of recording history for you to paint those pictures? Tell us, and tell people we didn't have cameras, it was important.

ET: We didn't have a camera, but even army in those days, they used artists to do a lot of sketches. The camera wasn't available at the time. Today, I think the camera is so, just about everyone has camera. Artists are no longer working. When I was in art school at the University of Washington, we were asked to go to a surgery and did some medical art and things like that. So I think we had a lot more to do with on the spot sketches.

AD: Are you glad that you have those paintings to look back on?

ET: Well, you know, I did a lot of it, but then I only have about fourteen of 'em left. And just the other day, they wanted to borrow at a reunion, sixty year reunion of camp, they showed it. And some of the lost art pieces came back from those papers, and before I went to get them, they were gone. People just helped themselves. And I found them in people's living room and different places. Still hanging. But I never made a claim for it because it's okay to have them.

AD: Maybe just start out by saying, "I painted about fourteen or so paintings while in camp," and just start by saying that, and describe some of the --

ET: Yeah, I think total number of paintings, probably fifty maybe. And the fourteen of 'em are left, and a lot of that fourteen, I feel the real artwork is maybe one or two or so. But yet, those people who've seen these before, or see it after sixty years, bring back a lot of memories of those things. There were times where I wanted to do, and I didn't have a lot of sketch, sketchbook or things to draw with, like I was out in the farm security camp, and tried to help the harvesting around Twin Falls area. I don't have any of those.

<End Segment 4> - Copyright © 2004 Densho. All Rights Reserved.