It Began With A Page by Kyo Maclear

Even as a small child, Gyo Fujikawa loved to draw. At the young age of five, she may not have yet known what she wanted to be but she knew she loved colours, line and "the feel of the pencil in her hand."

Gyo didn't have many friends when she was young and she didn't seem to be much noticed either. When her parents moved to a small fishing village near San Pedro, California, Gyo began to thrive. Although she still struggled socially at school, her beautiful drawings were noticed by two of her teachers, Miss Cole and Miss Blum.

Because Gyo's family was not well off, continuing school was not an option but Miss Cole found money to pay for her schooling. So Gyo attended art school in Los Angeles. It was unusual in 1925 for a woman and an Asian American to attend college but Gyo was determined.

She decided to continue her studies in Japan. When she returned to America, Gyo created murals and art for magazine. In 1942, with America at war with Japan, Gyo was forced to stay on the East Coast while her family were forced to leave their home on the West Coast and sent to a prison camp. All Japanese were considered enemies, even if they were born in America as Gyo was. This time was a period of great sadness for Gyo and she found it difficult to create art.

When the war was over, Gyo began drawing in earnest again, this time with the intention of having books send a message. A book featuring babies from different races was initially rejected by the publishers but Gyo insisted that they needed to break the rules. She remembered all the times she felt unwelcome as a Japanese American. Her book was published and the stage was set for Gyo to make more art like this.

Discussion

Gyo's are on her book Fairy Tales and Fables

Few people know about Gyo Fujikawa, a ground-breaking Asian American woman artist. Gyo  was born in 1908 to Hizoko and Yu Fujikawa. Interested in art at an early age, Gyo received a scholarship to study at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles. She became part of the Nisei artist community in that city, that is young people of Japanese ancestry who were born in America to Japanese citizens who had come to the country. After completing her studies at Chouinard, Gyo spent a year travelling in Japan studying traditional art making techniques. She returned  to America to work at Chouinard in 1933, staying until 1937.  Gyo also began working at Walt Disney Studios in 1933, eventually moving in 1941 to New York City to work in the studio there.

With the bombing of Pearl Harbor in December 1941, America declared war against Japan and all Japanese living in America were considered enemy aliens. Gyo's family did not escape the consequences of war, nor the government policies regarding Americans of Japanese heritage and were sent to a prison camp. Yu, Hikozo and Fred were first sent to Santa Anita Park racetrack and then onto a camp in Jerome, Arkansas. Gyo was restricted to living on the East Coast. Like most Japanese Americans, Gyo's family lost everything.

In the postwar years, Gyo worked as a freelancer, creating art for a variety of projects. In 1957 her illustrations appeared in a new edition of Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses. In 1963, she wrote and illustrated Babies which portrayed babies with different skin colours. With the success of this first book and second companion titled, Animal Babies, Gyo decided to focus on creating children's books.

Gyo's books were created with the idea that books could be so much more than just stories, that they could uplift and comfort people. Her focus on multiracial children in her books, aimed to send the message that people of different races are all part of the human family.  Although the civil rights movement was blossoming during this time, this was a very unique perspective for children's books and one which publishers were reluctant to tackle. Because of  Gyo and her family's experiences of racism during the Second World War, Gyo must have seen a need for children to be exposed to the idea that people of all skin colours should be treated equally.

Kyo Maclear tells Gyo's story with using simple text accompanied by the artwork of Julie Morstad. Morstad's illustrations rendered in liquid watercolour, gouache and pencil crayon, are stylistically reminiscent of Gyo's drawings.As both the author and illustrator mention in a note at the back, Gyo's art had a sense of delicacy about it. It is Gyo's use of fine lines to create her characters and her use of colour that give this quality to her art.

Maclear includes numerous photographs of Gyo courtesy of her family in the back matter of the book, but no pictures of her artwork. There is a detailed timeline of Gyo's life as well as a Selected Bibliography and a list of Sources. It Began With A Page is recommended as a read-aloud book and for anyone interested in art history.

Book Details:

It Began With A Page by Kyo Maclear
Tundra Books      2019