Drawing the Line: Japanese American Art, Design & Activism in Post-War Los Angeles…the title says it all. But what can you really expect to see?
Here's a few quick shots taken on my phone. Just a few teasers from the in-progress installation of "Drawing the Line"
Paintings, sketches, photographs, video clips, historic documents, a trophy, a guitar, and a Corvette!
In-progress installation shot of Ben Sakoguchi paintings in "Drawing the Line"
Curious? Intrigued?
Then make plans to join us for the exhibition opening on Saturday, October 15 at 5:30pm. Some light refreshments, hear from curator Kris Kuramitsu, check out the exhibition, meet some of the artists, and take in a special performance by Nobuko Miyamoto with Benny Yee and Atomic Nancy!
In-progress installation shot of Qris Yamashita's works
For more information about the exhibition, check out the link below.
This is part of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time project, so we hope to have a good turn-out for this event!
DRAWING THE LINE: Japanese American Art, Design & Activism in Post-War Los Angeles
October 15, 2011 through February 19, 2012 janm.org/exhibits/drawingtheline
Thanks to Tom Schay, we'll have a 1963 Corvette Sting Ray in the exhibition. This iconic car and many others were designed by Larry Shinoda.
Our volunteers are amazing. They continually inspire us with their dedication and enthusiasm. They are even willing to step outside their comfort zones if it means helping the museum to share the important stories of the Japanese American experience.
Since last summer, staff at our Watase Media Arts Center along with interns and volunteers have been working on a series of digital shorts that record many of our docents and other volunteers. The videos share the volunteer’s personal stories related to artifacts from our core Common Ground: The Heart of Community exhibition.
We’re collecting them together for easy access on our Discover Nikkei website. There are already 15 of the videos online, with more being added almost weekly.
Check out the volunteer videos on Discover Nikkei:
The 21st Century Museum: Significant artifacts selected by Japanese American National Museum Volunteers http://5dn.org/janm-vols
Volunteers featured so far: Bob Uragami, Babe Karasawa, Yae Aihara, Richard Murakami, Yoko Horimoto, Jim Tanaka, Tohru Isobe, Mas Yamashita, Robert Moriguchi, Kathryn Madara, Kent Hori, May Porter, Eileen Sakamoto, Lee Hayashi, and Roy Sakamoto.
Autumn is here and that means JANM’s October 8th Target Free Family Saturday is right around the corner! We took a little break in September to give everyone a chance to focus on the new school year. (Hope the year is off to a great start for all of our student friends out there!) Now we’re ready for more fun with October’s “Up in the Air” theme. Join us for kite making, a balloon artist, origami butterflies, and a tasty activity with Kidding Around in the Kitchen. I can’t wait! A complete schedule for the day can be found here. Hope you can come!
Here’s a sample of one of the activities that we will be doing. For now, this friendly balloon creature sits by himself in my at my desk but he’s looking forward to making more friends on October 8th!
And it starts in just a few minutes. I have to stay online long enough to have it go live so I can post the links. Stan Sakai’s Usagi Yojimbo Labbit made an appearance on the back cover of Stan’s 199th comic book issue, so I imagine the bidding will be fierce for this piece. The Year of the Labbit show is over but Stan’s Labbit is still on view in the Museum Store.
Amy Hill will be at the museum this weekend for 3 performances of her show, “LOST AND FOUND, Life as I (K)NEW It.”
October 1 @ 7 pm
October 2 @ 2 pm & 7 pm
Amy Hill explores how her life has evolved since her daughter became a part of her family. She talks about adoption, single motherhood, multiracial/transracial identity mash-ups and her continuing struggles to figure it all out in a humorous and honest way. Far from her days of flying solo, she has moved into a not so solo world: her daughter may or may not make an appearance.
L to R: Justice Oshima, Justice Kennedy, Justice Araki, Justice Komai, Justice Sameshima. Photo by Anonymous.
We had a very special guest visit JANM on Wednesday! He said that he had been hoping to visit us for a while, so while he was in LA he dropped by for a quick tour. What an honor it was to have shaken the hand of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.
Parkview High School (Little Rock) Student Mural, 2005. Photo by Richard M. Murakami.
It’s football season and the team that I follow is the University of Arkansas. No, I didn’t go to school there, but I am a huge fan. (Shall we call the hogs now?)
Why Arkansas?
Oddly enough, because Arkansas was the site for two government-run WWII concentration camps that unlawfully held 16,000 Japanese Americans. It was a virtually unknown story in the state for six decades. But thanks to a partnership between the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, and JANM, a multi-year project called Life Interrupted: The Japanese American Experience in World War II Arkansas culminated in 2004 with a number of exhibitions, educational programs, and a national conference. We hope that we might have collectively learned a little bit more about the Japanese American experience in the state, and specifically more about Rohwer and Jerome. Definitely, JANM staff and volunteers learned lots from Arkansans of all ages.
Detail of quilt created by elementary school students at Little Rock’s Gibbs Magnet School of International Studies and Foreign Languages, 2004. Photo by Richard M. Murakami.
You might be interested in a seven minute video of Arkansas students talking about what they learned. While you’re watching it, keep in mind that we arrived at these schools with a video camera and very little warning: major kudos go to these poised young people and their outstanding teachers!
Speaking of which, UALR’s Web site has all of the project’s teacher-created curriculum available for download–for free.
JANM, in 2005, followed up on the Life Interrupted project with an exhibition of murals made at Rohwer High School, Lasting Beauty: Miss Jamison and the Student Muralists. The murals on display here were just the tip of the iceberg of JANM’s holdings from the collection of student artwork and other camp-related memorabilia donated by former Rohwer art teacher, Mabel Rose Jamison Vogel–known to her students as Miss Jamison. This exhibition also proudly featured a new student mural, pictured at the top of this blog post. This beautiful mural was created by the students (shown below) at Little Rock’s Parkview High School as a modern-day response to the WWII-era murals. Painters of all ages pitched in to help, too.
Parkview HS students with their mural at JANM. Photo by Richard M. Murakami.
And now we are excited to announce that more Rohwer artwork and memorabilia are on exhibit! The Butler Center for Arkansas Studies–the institution that holds the other part of the Vogel Collection–has created an exhibition called The Art of Living: Japanese American Creative Experience at Rohwer. We hope you can get to Little Rock before November 26 to see it!
On Sunday, September 18, the museum hosted a special sneak preview of the upcoming exhibition, Folding Paper: The Infinite Possibilites of Origami for our Upper Level Members.
Meher McDonald sharing slides of origami works during her presentation.
Meher McArthur, curator for the exhibition that will be opening at JANM in March 2012, gave a wonderful presentation about the history of origami in Japan, but also revealed a tradition of paper folding in Europe that surprised many in the audience.
Museum staff are collaborating with Meher on this exciting exhibition that will look at not just the origins and growth of paper folding, but also present an incredible selection of origami works from a diverse array of “folders” around the world. Not only do they represent countries like Japan, the U.S., France, Belgium, and Vietnam, they are diverse in their backgrounds as well. Some are artists and educators, while a large contingent are from math & science backgrounds.
Many exclamations of amazement from the crowd when Meher informed us that this was made from one piece of paper, and that the artist conceived & figured out how to fold it in his mind!
In addition to the mind-blowing contemporary pieces, the exhibition will also include a section on the influence of origami on science, medicine, fashion, and architecture. A very special section will focus especially on the role of origami cranes as a symbol of global unity and world peace.
This exhibition is being produced to travel by International Arts and Artists, but the Museum is a co-developer and will be the originating venue. Our own origami expert, volunteer Ruthie Kitagawa, is helping to create examples of some of the traditional pieces. It will open at JANM on March 10, 2012 and will travel for 3 years.
Inspired by the documentary, Between the Folds, Meher is putting together an exhibition that will delight and inform kids, educators, mathematicians, artists, and everyone in between.
If you are interested in supporting this exhibition, call Sarah Carle at 213.830.5670 for information about sponsorship opportunities.
P.S. Meher will be guest-blogging here on our FIRST & CENTRAL JANM blog! Check back for updates from her and more behind-the-scenes sneak-peeks!
These masks elicited a lot of 'oohs' and 'aahs'Geometric origami. (sorry for the quality of the images. Took them on my phone)Sadako Sasaki's story has inspired people around the world. Very excited that one of the cranes she folded will be in the exhibition.
Shibori Girl taught another incredible shibori workshop at the Museum this past Saturday. The workshop was close to full and students of all levels had a fantastic time experimenting with their shibori and indigo dyeing projects. Glennis, who is Shibori Girl, just returned from a month-long trip in Japan where she attended the annual Arimatsu Shibori Festival and brought samples of gorgeous vintage and contemporary shibori samples for everyone to covet.
Indigo Shibori Samples
Instructor’s Tombo Sample
Stitching the Tombo Design
For this workshop, the goal was to create a tombo (dragonfly) image on indigo using basic shibori stitching techniques. Seemed like a daunting project at first but it turned out to be a very simple task and the results were impressive. I’m sure it was a breeze only because of Glennis’ expert step-by-step instructions. After mastering the tombo project, students were able to experiment with different techniques for the rest of the workshop. The three hours zoomed by and students were still scrambling to squeeze in yet one more project into the dye vat.
Glennis with a Small Indigo Vat
To illustrate how much this group of students enjoyed the workshop: There was a loud collective groan when Public Program Manager, Koji Sakai said that there wasn’t another shibori workshop scheduled until 2012. “That’s too long a wait!” There was grumbling. So now there is talk about have a two-day shibori workshop next year. What do you think? Any past workshop attendees out there reading this blog? Weigh in and email Koji your thoughts about the two-day workshop at ksakai@janm.org or post your comments on this blog.
If you have ever been tempted to take any of the shibori classes the Museum offers, please, just jump in and sign up when you see the next one being offered. You will not be disappointed – Glennis is a generous and knowledgeable instructor who leads an excellent workshop which gets you back in touch with that inner-artist in you and leaves you craving to create more and more shibori pieces. Warning: Shibori and indigo are extremely addictive.
Next Saturday, on September 24th at 2pm, Dr. ShiPu Wang will be at the Museum to talk about his book, Becoming American? The Art and Identity Crisis of Yasuo Kuniyoshi.
Yasuo Kuniyoshi was one of the preeminent 20th century American artists. He was active in New York as a teacher and in both artist circles and Japanese American organizations from pre-war until his death in 1953. At the time, he was an internationally known painter and graphic artist, but sadly is not well known now, particularly in the Japanese American community.
Becoming American? is the first scholarly book in over two decades to offer a critical evaluation of the pivotal art of Yasuo Kuniyoshi.
We asked one of our volunteer writers to interview Dr. Wang about the book for our Discover Nikkei website:
“Drawing the Line” banner is already outside!
