Densho Digital Archive - Rose Niguma Interview (denshovh-nrose

<Begin Segment 11>

MR: I would like to ask about your art.

RN: What?

MR: I would like to ask about your art. When did you first know you wanted to be an artist, that you would paint?

RN: Well, I did when I was nine years old. See my father bought encyclopedia called Book of Knowledge. My mother started me out when we were about four years old with Renny Wizard, crayon and paper, and she'd tell us to draw to pass our time. That's when I became attracted. I thought, "Oh, this is interesting," and then it always interested me. But when I was nine years old, I had it when I was six, but I didn't pay very much attention to it. But when I was nine years old, I heard about Titian, the Renaissance artists, see, and their art fascinated me. And my mother kept talking about Mizuno and Furuya, the Issei artist. She knew them. My parents knew them, so she talked about them. She didn't know she was influencing me. She didn't, but I knew that they studied at the museum art school under Mr. Wentz. But their artwork never went anywhere because of who they were and that disturbed me.

So I decided the second generation artists are not going to undergo that, see, so I initiated two exhibits; one was at the Legacy Center, and the other one, the first one I started had all the Japanese American artists, graphic artists, sculptors, medical artists, I don't know, because I wasn't going to have it be like Mizuno and Furuya I told myself, so I did. I had to have a place for exhibits, so I went to Bill Naito. I asked them if he would have a space for me. He looked at me, and he said he would, and [inaudible] help me, so we had it at Erickson Bar. That's in Old Town. We had it for two weeks, but we had to raise money. We got 1,000 dollars from Metropolitan Art Commission, and I think we got another thousand from Collin Foundation. Mr. Pine was very nice, and some is really marvelous from what people are asking them. They give away money, millions. It was just a thousand. But anyway, they had it and I have to have a sculpture stand, so I went to Donald Jenkins. At that time, he was the director. He's a founder of Asian Art Council, Asian artwork. He allowed it, so I borrowed it, and there was someone there in charge of those things was a student studying with me at that time. So I was able to borrow it, and we put it up and I painted, you know. When I returned it, I painted, we painted it to return it that way. But Mr. Jenkins was very nice. He did that; he helped me. And we had several orders, and people around, they came from elsewhere. But people around Old Town says we don't have anything like this happening for us, so they appreciate it. They came, said, "We're happy we have something like this for us," they told me. And because Bill Naito had friends around that store, he practically owned Old Town, they came too, and I remember Oyster Bar coming, you know, on Second. He came and I remember him, and others came, and I thought he was nice. But that wasn't because of Furuya and Mizuno. I didn't have to worry about them anymore because the second generation artists are being recognized. In Seattle, they're much more luckier because the artists there are more open than here. So like Tsutakawa, they, he was in their group because they're more experienced, Mark Tobey, very well-known artist. But here, it wasn't like that. So they had [inaudible] originally exhibit that came from San Francisco, Japanese museum. Well, I went to see if they have any Mizuno or Furuya painting, any artwork. The art museum didn't have it. I went there and thought they might have something. There was nothing.

And when they have the exhibit at Oregon Historical Society, Mr. Cleaver there was very nice. He asked me if I was, put up an exhibit in with [inaudible] adversity. So I went around, collecting things that were made by people in camp. Several people did and it was a nice exhibit. And my cousin Mrs. Carma did a beautiful, I think a shawl or a tablecloth. It was all crocheted and fine thread. It was beautiful, so they put that in the center. So I asked them would they donate it to Oregon Historical Society. She said, no. It was their family heirloom. So hardly anybody gave up anything. They want it for their family. Here is history. That leaves the history there, but they didn't. So I thought, "Well, I'll donate my Crater Lake painting because they didn't," so I donated it to them. It's a very nice one. I could donate to Legacy Center, but it was before Legacy Center, so it's there. And Mr. Cleaver says, "I like your large paintings." I have a lot of them because I didn't intend to sell them. I was saving them for my old age when I sell them, why pay rent? She asked me to donate one of them. I should have at that time, but I thought to myself, I didn't want to donate a great big one because they cost money. So the large one cost ten thousand, see, so I didn't. But right now, I regret it. They would have history on me there, so I regret that. But I did have two exhibits, one at Legacy Center. Jim Murakami did nice work and made it very nice. Robert Dozono, my cousin, hung them. He's a professional hanger of painting. He hung those for me. And he went nationally, but the people didn't understand abstraction. So Ann Shiogi has a very minimal painting like that, three blocks of color, and one man said, "What's that?" I said, "It's minimal painting," you know, very minimal. And he said, "I could do that," but no you can't, but I didn't say anything. They don't understand it has to be representational. But Frank Okada, a very known painter, he has work up at the art museum. In order to help, he did small paintings like this. He sold them for $1000 or $1500. Nobody bought them. I thought how stupid can these people be? They know about art. And I thought I could buy them myself, but I didn't have $1000 or $1500 at that time. They're very small brush work. You have to look at them to understand. He died, very nice person. All that work and I thought I'm not getting the reaction I had hoped, you know. So I held two of them, and then finally, I decided I'm not going to break my head or heart over them. They have a tough training that, out of that in order to understand them, and they're not, they won't be spending that time that I did, see. Well, I was trying to educate them, so, well, probably your children might. I don't know.

But I decide I'll go on, do my own work because Mizuno Furuya, I couldn't locate any of their work nowhere, and I found one that a woman had. It was a copy of Egen's painting, a very poor copy, very poor work, mediocre, but that's menial. So I asked this woman, "Would you care to donate it?" She's horrified. She thought it'd probably cost millions of dollars later on. You know people have funny ideas. She didn't donate it. So that's one work I've seen. So I thought, well, I'm not going to bother her with that. So I thought, well, I'll go back to my own painting be shy. Mizuno and Furuya were, there was a very nice young person, he understood that the Issei artists worked their heart out, never got anywhere. They worked, became obscure, and disappeared, but he decided their names should be known of their existence. So he did, he initiated it and did handle several artists, and he included Mizuno and Furuya, so they're on record. Their work isn't, but they're on record, but they were one-time artists here. So I just thought when that was done, I decided that there is no work for me to go ahead and do what I was doing. So I thought, I'll go ahead and do my own work and concentrate on that. So that was the end of my art activity.