He asked me what that art book was on my shelf. And I onyl knew it vaguely. So we took out the book and I have been reading it ever since. It is awesome: Saburo Hasegawa (painter) and Isamu Nobuchi (sculptor), two japano american artists from the 50s. A lot of relation to buddhism, especially zen. a lot of calligraphy. Sculptures too etc. Turns out one of the studio they used in the 50s was a recycled boat harbored in the  san franscisco bay. Ginsberg, Kerouac, Snyder, Leary, Alan watts and many others hung out there too. It is by seeing Hasegawa work at that studio that many beatnik took to callligraphy and zen buddhism for the first time.