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People are made in the image of God. And what is the first thing people learn about God? The very first verse of the first chapter of the holy book? "In the beginning, God created." That's what God did.

That's what we do. Apparently, we create as surely as we blink or breathe. Apparently, we create even if we are disallowed any other sense of normality.

Can you imagine any feeling more helpless than being interred by your adopted country during a war? A war that pits your family against your country? I can barely stand to think about it. Domestic camps of people, herded, guarded as if dangerous, inspiring such literature as Snow Falling on Cedars. The stories make a weight of guilt and a memory not my own - a memory of panic - of being trapped - settle into the sternum. We read these things and wonder at the inhumanity of man to man.

And yet ...

These are "bird and animal pins made of scrap wood, paint and metal, by Himeko Fukuhara and Kazuko Matsumoto, interned at Camp Amache, Colo., and Gila River, Ariz."

There is a lot more currently on exhibit at the Smithsonian's Renwick Gallery. The story (with some more breathtaking pictures) is here, at NPR's Morning Edition. The exhibit and programs are the Smithsonian is here, at their site. In the beginning, God created. In the internment camps, the Japanese families did.