Category: JANM Store

9066 to 911 DVD

9066 to 9/11 — JANM-Produced Film Available on Comcast!

Akira Boch Leave a comment

In commemoration of the tenth anniversary of 9/11, the JANM-produced film “FROM 9066 TO 9/11” is available in Comcast’s cable VOD service, Cinema Asian America for the month of September.

About the film:

After the attacks of September 11, there was an instant public backlash against Arab Americans and Muslims.  Anyone who looked like the “enemy” became suspect.  The same thing happened to Japanese Americans after the bombing of Pearl Harbor in 1941, and the parallels were obvious.  Unfortunately, the backlash against Japanese Americans during World War II resulted in the mass incarceration of 120,000 innocent people.  It became the mission of many Japanese American individuals and community groups, including the Japanese American National Museum, to use our community’s history in order to protect the rights of our Arab American and Muslim brothers and sisters. As we all know, if we forget our history, we may find ourselves repeating it.

Features interviews with: Yuri Kochiyama, Rev. Art Takemoto, Jerry Kang, Dr. Art Hansen, Linda Sherif, Ban Al-Wardi, Tajuddin Shuaib, and Evelyn Yoshimura.

About the VOD service, Cinema Asian America:

Cinema Asian America is a ground-breaking new video-on-demand offering, which features Asian American films and videos in a monthly, thematically-programmed format.

For the first time, millions of viewers across the nation are able to watch a curated series of Asian American and Asian films, which will collect together award-winning films fresh from the film festival circuit and classics which beg to be revisited.

From September 1, 2011 – September 31, 2011, “FROM 9066 TO 9/11” will be available to all Comcast digital cable subscribers with On-Demand.  It is available for $0.99/view.

9066 to 911 DVD

To watch:

Through your digital cable menu, click on the “On Demand” button, and then look under the “Movies” folder. In this will be a “Movie Collections” folder and inside of this viewers will find “Cinema Asian America” and will be able to access “FROM 9066 to 9/11.”

Thank you, and please help spread the word!

p.s. For those who don’t have Comcast but are interested in watching the film, it’s available on DVD from the Museum Store.

New Labbit Auction!

Maria Kwong Leave a comment

Kip Fulbeck’s Labbit piece just went up for auction today. You have ten days to bid on this clever piece of functional art!

Kip came in and made some alterations to the original version by replacing the florist’s foam with traditional ikebana kenzan, thereby insuring permanence and flexibilty in creating your flower arrangements.

BTW—the stones that look so randomly and artistically placed are epoxied in so what you see is what you will get!

Here’s a link to the auction >>

All the proceeds from this auction will ge to the Museum as a donation from the artist. Thanks Kip!

Speaking of Labbits…

Maria Kwong Leave a comment

I was reminded of a similar story to my Frank Kozik blog entry when I saw this photo on Facebook. I ordered “shikata ga nai” rocks for the Museum Store once and this is what I got.

It wasn’t the first time ordering, and my order was printed in 14 pt type with the correct spelling. Someone at the factory decided I had misspelled my copy.

Ordinarily I like it when someone proofs my copy, but once I had someone change the spelling of my last name to “Quon” because they were sure that I had misspelled it. It was for an art show mailer.

Mike Shinoda’s Labbit Auction is over!

Maria Kwong Leave a comment

After many check-ins last night where the bid was stuck at $510, I finally decided to call it quits and go to bed.

I woke up in the middle of the night and was plagued by work thoughts, but didn’t sneak in to check the computer and risk waking the household with whoops of excitement. It was like waiting for Christmas morning and it was worth it to see that the final bid was $721.00!

Again, thanks to Mike Shinoda, proceeds benefit JANM & Music for Relief/Japan Relief.

 

Next auction starts August 1, with Kip Fulbeck’s ingenious ikebana Labbit entitled, “More than the Sum of Our Parts.”

I have been enjoying the opportunity to create flower arrangements every few days. It’s a nice way to start your day…contemplating art and beauty.

Check the janm.org page for a schedule of the upcoming auctions >>

Check janmstore.com to view all of the Labbits >> 

Labbits are up!

Maria Kwong Leave a comment

Sorry everyone for making you wait so long to see the Labbit collection in its entirety, but please believe me when I say I have been working round the clock to get the show up while also managing my regular job.

Anyway, I just took the last shot an hour ago (for the Labbit that arrived an hour before we set up) and got every piece online. Five pieces sold last night at the opening, but there are plenty of fantastic pieces left to choose from as you will see.

Thanks to all of the artists who participated in the show, and all of the people who came to the opening night. It all amounts to support for the Museum!

The last arrival was from artist Jimmy Tsutomu Mirikitani of New York. He gets special dispensation because he is 92 years old and wasn’t quite sure what to make of my request to be in a custom toy show. For those of you who are familiar with Jimmy’s story through the DVD “The Cats of Mirikitani“, you may notice a slight resemblance to the artist in this piece. If you haven’t seen the DVD, you can buy one in the Museum Store when you come to admire the Labbit show in person.

Check out all the Labbits online >>

Jerome Lu's Hyperactive Shaolin Rabbit

I say Labbit, you say Rabbit

Maria Kwong 1 Comment

I have received a couple of inquiries as to the origin of the title for the Year of the Labbit show, so I thought perhaps an explanation was in order. I was not trying to confuse, confound, or humiliate anyone for not being able to pronounce Ls and Rs (like my mother planned to when she wanted to name me Laura so neither my Chinese nor Japanese grandparents would be able to say my name correctly –Lola, Rora,..)

Jerome Lu's Hyperactive Shaolin Rabbit
Angry Asian labbit! (Jerome Lu's Hyperactive Shaolin Rabbit)

 

The blank toy that was used for the show was an already existing product created by Kid Robot and the artist Frank Kozik. I wondered about the name since the toy had absolutely no reflection of any Asian influences. I assumed it was a combination of the Latin based word for “rabbit” which in French at least is “lapin” and  “rabbit”, and left it at that. There were never any indications that this was aimed at an Asian audience, it never came with Asian themed accessories, and wasn’t questioned until I decided to use it for the blank canvas for this show, at this Museum, and called the show the Year of the Labbit.

I contacted the artist to ask him how the Labbit got its name. Frank told me that his first version of this toy was a mean-looking rabbit with a cigarette in its mouth and a scar on its forehead. I had seen this in his artwork as a “Smorkin’ Labbit”, and indeed several toy versions were made with variations of rabbits and other inanimate objects (like watermelons, hamburgers, etc. all smoking cigarettes.) Frank said that he sent his Smokin’ Rabbit design to Asia for final production. When he received his first shipment of packaged product, someone in Asia had changed everything to “Smorkin’ Labbit”! Rather than scrap the whole project and return everything for a re-do, he decided to let serendipity to play into his product and kept the name as is.

The version of Kozik’s toy we are using is called the Happy Labbit and is a little more family friendly and cute. But basically I chose it because its shape offered the most surface area for artists to paint on.

Labbit Custom Show UPDATE

Maria Kwong 1 Comment

Here’s an update on our Year of the Labbit Custom Show opening on Thursday!

Whew, working to open two shows a week apart is insane! It always gets done, often without all the behind-the-scenes drama showing up in the final product (see my last post re: drama.)  However some important items you should know: 1.) the Labbit Show opens at 6:30 PM on Thursday, July 14. We won’t unveil until then. 2.) Admission to the exhibition is FREE that evening. 3.) Some of the Labbits will be auctioned off on eBay through out the run of the show. These include Labbits by Mike Shinoda, Kip Fulbeck, higashi glaser and Stan Sakai. The auctions will be posted on the Year of the Labbit page on our web site. Each auction will last a week so you will have plenty of time to bid.

Online sales for the other pieces will be up (gulp!) hopefully by the opening night. I can’t tell you exactly when, but keep checking our site. We won’t start selling until the show opens however.

Year of the Labbit

Museum Store 1 Comment

Anyone who has ever organized a custom toy show will tell you that when the art starts rolling in, it’s like you are having your own private Christmas. The quality and ingenuity of the work is very high for this show and we are now thinking that some of the pieces may be auctioned off during the run of the exhibition. Details to come!

The task of photographing all these pieces and prepping them for the web store hasn’t gotten started yet, but I wanted to share a few teasers that were created from photos sent to me by the artists.

I’m not sure what order these will come up in, but the artists are Konatsu, Mark Nagata, and Stan Sakai. I’m sure you will be able to figure out who did what!