beautiful and w ell-crafted things became a w ay to give
emotional strength. W hat that says about the role o f
arts and crafts in bolstering the spirit is pretty powerful.
And yet many of the people never made things again.
I look at the stone teapot and the carved co w [in the
book], and I think, “M y G od” : T h e gu y w ho made the
teapot was a gardener; the guy w ho carved the cow was
a farmer. T h e y had no formal training, and when they
got out o f the camp they never carved again.
W h en I ask people about it, they say it was just w hat
they had to do. It helped them pass the time, and be-
cause they w eren’t trained, they didn’t see w hat they
made as art. T h e y also w ere seeing everybody around
them doing som ething, so all the m ore reason, I think,
w hen the camps closed and they got home, that they
didn’t think o f w hat they did as exceptional. I w ould
say for every object that was saved, io others w ere
thrown away.
People didn’t recognize that they had any skill, so
they never tried to show their w ork to anybody. M any
times w hen I asked if there w as anything from the
camps, the adult children or grandchildren w eren’t
even aware that it had been saved.
It seems like this has been an amazing opportunity to
foster community.
It really has been, and w hat’s been amazing is how
many people have stepped forw ard after the book came
out and after the shows began to show me w hat they
have in their collection or w hat some member o f their
fam ily has made.
This jointed figure was
made of scrap wood
in Topaz, ut, perhaps
as a toy for a child in
the camp.
Left: A hall at Manzanar,
ca, doubled as an art
school. Internees with
an art background taught
fellow internees.
An unidentified artist in
Jerome, ar, carved this
meticulously detailed
scale model of a freight-
er, thought to be a rep-
lica of the boat that
brought him to America.
dec/jann american craft 053
