Unknown artist, Heart Mountain, Wyoming, bas-relief carved and painted wood panel. Japanese American Museum of San Jose (California). Reprinted with permission from The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps 1942-1946. Copyright © 2005 by Delphine Hirasuna, Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, CA. Photo Credit: Terry Heffernan.This exhibition is based upon a ground-breaking book (The Art of Gaman, Ten Speed Press, 2005) by Delphine Hirasuna, who is the exhibition's guest curator. It presents arts and crafts made by Japanese and Japanese Americans who were interned in concentration camps in California, Wyoming, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Colorado, and Arkansas during World War II. The exhibition features nearly 200 objects made primarily from scrap and found materials by those detained in the camps and gives a sense of the full range of artistic activities that existed within the internment camps that saw the forced relocation of 120,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans. The exhibition also demonstrates the resiliency of the creative spirit—how human beings are able to create objects of beauty and meaning with humble materials and under the most difficult circumstances.
Akira Oye, Cow Carving, Akira Oye took up wood carving while interned at Rohwer, during which time he carved the figures of many familiar animals and birds. After the camp closed, he never carved again. Reprinted with permission from The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps 1942-1946. Copyright © 2005 by Delphine Hirasuna, Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, CA. Photo Credit: Terry Heffernan.Download Guest Book