Education at the camps encompassed more than reading, writing and arithmetic. In many camps, professional artists offered art classes. All camp residents, adults and children, found themselves in an alien and threatening situation. The art created within the camps embodies their responses to life inside internment.

Internees produced a wide variety of arts and crafts objects from natural materials found in and near the camps. From Tule Lake shells to the native woods of Arkansas, Idaho, and Wyoming, local raw materials were transformed into graceful objects, some of which were shipped outside the camps to raise money.

"They had hobby shows in camp, very well received. Everybody in camp displayed their talents. They made use of everything in camp. Rocks, pebbles, fruit wrapping, seeds, cardboard, fence, anything they could find. Clever, beautiful, interesting."
—Mine Okubo, Beyond Words: Images from America's Concentration Camps

The simple art of interned children seems to resonate all the loneliness and isolation experienced inside the camps, as well as the spirit of trying to continue a normal life.

"I taught art in camp to children... I remember the girls drew pictures about camp and camp life. The boys were more imaginative. Their pictures were on war, airplanes, circus, and subjects out of camp."
—Mine Okubo, Beyond Words: Images from America's Concentration Camps

Pride and craftsmanship are obvious in many pieces of furniture manufactured in the camps. Using borrowed or homemade tools, artisans confined to the camps kept their skills alive and made life more comfortable for their families.

"Working largely with discarded scrap lumber, metal, and nails that they found on the grounds, they [JAs] handcrafted objects of great beauty. In addition, they made such functional items as bookends, trays, chests, bath clogs, ashtrays, and hats woven from grasses that grew in the camp grounds."
—Yoshiko Uchida, Desert Exile: The Uprooting of a Japanese American Family

The Obatas of Berkeley, California, were among the thousands of families sent to the camps. Chiura Obata, a professional artist trained in Japan and a tenured member of the faculty at the University of California, Berkeley, kept a unique visual record of the experience. In a series of sketch books, Obata traced his family's journey from a registration center in Berkeley to the camp at Topaz, Utah.