Seen at the Schack

Credit King5.com

If you're visiting or traveling through Everett, Washington this summer, try to stop by Schack Art Center to see "Americans Interned: A Family's Story of Social Injustice."

This main gallery exhibition by husband and wife, Chris and Jan (Itami) Hopkins, is described as "heartbreaking and inspiring" on a video by King 5. Mixed-media pieces, oil paintings, sumi-ink block prints and graphite drawings combine to convey a visual narrative of Executive Order 9066.

Jan was a classmate of my sister, Connie. We all attended Lone Star School, a three-room grade school outside the city limits of Nampa, Idaho. We grew up together but I never knew Jan's parents were incarcerated in the Minidoka War Relocation Center until I began work on my Minidoka book. Dyke and June Itami appear on pages 206 and 207, which is part of the exhibition.

The couple is being honored as Artists of the Year for 2018. Their work is part of a larger retrospective at the art center. The exhibition opens Thursday, June 21, 2018 from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. and will remain on display through Sept. 1, 2018. Admission to Schack Art Center is free.