<Begin Segment 31>

RP: And did you eventually pursue your artistic abilities?

IK: Yeah, well, I got discharged out here, called, I was to do here. We got married, and then I got a job here and she worked at the community chest for a while, and I got a job with an agency here, but our business, this, Los Angeles was just small time. And I had, no big guns in Chicago, so I went back to Chicago and worked with the studio I did for a while and, because they were supposed to give us return jobs. So he took me back, and then I got tired of that and started my own business there and decided that... I had my office right at the corner of, where the Elevated went by, and with no air conditioning that was the biggest racket in the world, so I decided nowhere, this is no place to raise a family and we came back to Los Angeles and started a business again.

RP: So it, what, it was a graphic, graphic arts business?

IK: Yes. I was, I was, the title then would be commercial artist, but I started the words design because I didn't want to be a big specialist in any one thing, 'cause I wasn't gonna ever be as good as the guys that I saw, but I could have a creative design. And so I designed anything that came along.

RP: And you start, you said that your inspiration for pursuing your art was the cartoons that you used to draw?

IK: That's the only thing I could think of, 'cause I did enjoy it when I was a kid, or I did draw a lot when I was a kid. I didn't know if I liked it or not, but I could do it. And I did it a lot when I was a kid.

KP: And you said your dad had an interest in...

IK: Oh, he wanted me to be a doctor.

KP: But he had an interest in drawing, too?

IK: Yes, he did. I think all dentists are that way because you, they do sculpting before they learn how to make teeth things, so every doctor I know has made a ring for his wife or, I know my father made a gold ring for my mother. And one fellow was courting my daughter, was a dentist, and he was very interesting. He paints and everything. So a lot of them are frustrated dentists.

RP: [Laughs]

<End Segment 31> - Copyright © 2009 Manzanar National Historic Site and Densho. All Rights Reserved.