Gyo Fujikawa was a writer, illustrator, and designer. She wrote and illustrated her own books, illustrated others’ books, and did other artistic projects, such as designing stamps for the U.S. Postal Service. People who write about her tend to make some of the same points: she was prolific, and her work spoke to them, even called to them.
(This is one of Gyo Fujikawa’s stamps.)
It Began With a Page: How Gyo Fujikawa Drew the Way is a 2019 picture book written by Kyo Maclear and illustrated by Julie Morstad. It tells the story of Fujikawa’s complex life, and tries to trace the path from experience to art. As the notes from author and illustrator at the end of the book indicate, the project started with the experience of Fujikawa’s art, and tried to learn about the mind, heart, and hands that created it.
While this book is lovely and well-designed, it is, I fear, one of those picture books that will appeal more to adults than kids, especially now, since Fujikawa died in 1998. That being said, this book does a good job of bring a life to life, and of evoking experiences that will likely be alien to many kids. Fujikawa was Nisei, born in the United States to parents who were born in Japan and immigrated to the United States. She lived through being out of place in the U.S. due to her sex, attending college when relatively few women did. She was out of place in her visits to Japan, where the art was more rule-bound than she liked. And she was living in New York and working for Disney in the 1940s, when her family was sent to an internment camp for their–and her–Japanese ancestry.
These experiences and more contributed to the diverse and liberating art Fujikawa created. The art and her life deserve attention. This book helps with that, but is in some ways surprising: it seems unlikely to draw a huge audience, despite its clear quality.
