Flower Arranging

In Japan Dictionary by Lewis Bush, the principles of flower arrangement (ikebana) are described.

"Heaven is the main principle; the subordinate principle, earth; and the reconciling principle, man."

Art in Everything

In Nisei Odyssey: The Camp Years, a writer tells the story of seeing art in the everyday.

"There was one man. A slight man and a quiet man in our Area C who saw something more than firewood when he picked up the slab wood. He picked slabs with especially thick bark and proceeded to carve bas-reliefs of an eagle, a dragon and possibly other things out of the bark on these slabs of firewood. As the carving progressed it revealed a cellular striation in the bark which could be viewed as the feathers of the eagle or as scales in the case of the dragon. The reddish-brown of the bark with the light yellow striations created an object of art out of a very common thing for this man with imagination and eyes to see."

The Music of Rain

In Beauty Behind Barbed Wire: The Arts of the Japanese in Our War Relocation Camps by Allen Eaton, the author recalls the reaction of Jo Tominaga to the sound of rain.

"My father was a workman. We lived in a neighborhood of out-of-door laborers. He built our little house and made a special garden on our stony plot of ground. When he had completed the garden, he collected all the leftover stones and piled them carefully along the edge of the house, below the eaves. On rainy days, when the neighbors could not work, he would call them in and they would all make poems to the music of the rain falling from the roof to the stones below."

Artistic Essence of Japanese Character

In Democracy on Trial: The Japanese American Evacuation and Relocation in World War II by Page Smith, the centrality of art to the Japanese spirit is discussed.

"One of the most striking aspects of Yamato Damashii is its aesthetic element. Art, in its widest manifestation, is integral to the Japanese character. It is not something to be 'appreciated,' a kind of 'embellishment,' the preoccupation primarily of the more prosperous and better educated members of society as is so often the case in the modern industrial world. Art, like loyalty and honor, obedience to parents, like the work ethic and 'individualism' to the hakujin, was, and to some extent remains, an essential part of the character of the Japanese people of whatever class or degree. In the centers one of the most appealing aspects of Yamato Damashii was this same impulse to turn everything into art, to enhance the natural beauty of the world, and to create an endless array of aesthetically satisfying things. That impulse is perhaps stronger in the Japanese people than in any other race or nation."

Transcendent Dance

In Looking Like the Enemy, the author recalls a dance performance at camp.

"As we danced to the music traditionally played in a minor key, I had a vision of a pensive person walking beside a gentle stream trickling over rocks. The water followed the bends in the river, finally flowing into a serene pool. The music and the movements took me to a peaceful place where the two cultures unified for a brief time. I felt whole--Japanese by heritage and American by birth."