Densho Digital Archive - Henry Nishi Interview I (denshovh-nhenry

<Begin Segment 17>

RP: Was he pretty, pretty much a traditionalist in his use of specific plant materials and rocks? Did he...

HN: You mean Doctor Kawana?

RP: Yes.

HN: Yeah, oh yeah. Yeah, yeah.

RP: You had a chance to actually go out and work with him a little bit.

HN: Oh yeah, yeah.

RP: First of all you said you used to go collect, select rocks with him.

HN: Yeah.

RP: Where did you...

HN: He was, when, when he was actually doing some private work for some of his friends in school, the professors that wanted gardens, I think we built seven or eight different private gardens for, and they were all people from UCLA. And I helped him build the gardens under his direction.

RP: How about the rock selection? You said you went...

HN: Yeah, we, it was at the time... of course, the Japanese gardens, the granite boulders were most suitable for, for Japanese gardens. And that Pomona Claremont area had better beautiful, more beautiful rocks than our local San Fernando Valley. So we went out there to... and also they were more available out there, too, in that, that area, the foothills of I guess it was the, not the San Bernardino but in that...

RP: San Gabriel?

HN: Yeah, I guess the San Bernardino County, we picked rocks there.

RP: You could just drive out and collect 'em?

HN: Yeah, yeah.

RP: And how did you, how did you, you hauled them by truck?

HN: Yeah.

RP: You have cranes or...

HN: I had a small, small truck with a crane on it. And we were only able to carry about 3 tons at a time.

RP: Were these granite rocks or...

HN: These are granite, yeah. Yeah. They had... really, for whatever, I don't know, for whatever reason, the granite rocks were, had more character to 'em in that, in that area than our rocks here in, in the San Fernando Valley. They had more color, colors were better. But, you know, it was still granite rock, but, and they, they, it was just more, they had more character to 'em. But, so... our preference was, was to get rocks from that area.

RP: Can you describe to us the process of putting together a garden with the professor? What...

HN: Yeah. The way Doctor Kawana... his, instead of doing a plot plan, he did a rendering in watercolor, or sumi-e. And he'd do a, he'd do a beautiful rendering of a garden that he... then we used that rendering to execute a garden. Opposed to... normally you would have a plot plan where you'd be looking at a, at a plan that designated exactly where, what went, what rock went where and what plant went. The elevations were all on a plot plan. But his, his plan was just a rendering. But in order to execute it properly, he supervised doing it. So that... but if you had an exact plot plan you didn't need to have the person that was, actually designed the garden to, to execute it because plot, plot plan was very precise, exactly as to where, where everything went.

RP: So he would supervise the construction?

HN: Yeah, yeah.

RP: And he would, he would locate the rocks and...

HN: Yeah, yeah. And he was very decisive about rocks. I know I've worked, worked with other architects and other designers doing rock work, they would try to place a rock, they'd place it. "No, I don't like the way it looks, let's do, let's try another one or let's turn it over." But Kawana, "I want this rock and I want this side up and I want this much buried." And it was, he never, he was very decisive about, it went in, that was it. There was no fumbling around, changing rocks or, "Oh, I don't like this." And the work went real quick because his, his decisiveness. Yeah, it was amazing. Normally, you would play with the rock. Try to place it, and no, it doesn't look right. Let's turn it over or let's get another rock. But he, he would pick out a rock and this rock goes here, this goes down, and that was it. There was no change. [Laughs] Consequently, it was very easy to work with somebody like that if you, if you were the contractor. Because time meant... if you had to be spending a lot of time on each different item. You're spending a lot of, a lot of money on time, which, which was not the best thing in the, in the final, final analysis.