Congratulations to Judge Bruce Iwasaki who was appointed to a judgeship in the Los Angeles County Superior Court by Governor Jerry Brown on May 18. He is a former board member of the Japanese American Bar Association.
The photo below is from The Rafu Shimpo, taken by Mario Reyes. The very proud-looking woman to the right of Judge Iwasaki is his mother Sumi, who happens to be a long-time volunteer at JANM! To his left is his wife, Evelyn Yoshimura, a long-time staff member at the Little Tokyo Service Center. Both Bruce and Evelyn were part of the collective that produced Gidra magazine which was featured in our Drawing the Line: Japanese American Art, Design & Activisim in Post-War Los Angeleslast year.
Also in the picture are his daughter Naomi and son-in-law Casey Eiseman.
Drawing the Line was our participation in the Getty Foundation’s Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980 project, a collaboration of more than fifty cultural institutions across Southern California, which came together for six months beginning October 2011 to tell the story of the birth of the Los Angeles art scene and how it became a major new force in the art world.
All of the partners in this ground-breaking collaboration have been asked to issue a survey to its members and supporters to close out the project. The survey will collect general responses on attitudes about arts and culture in Los Angeles and throughout Southern California and is a follow-up to one conducted prior to the project launch.
Could you help us again with this follow-up survey?
Please take this brief survey to help the Japanese American National Museum and other arts institutions across Southern California plan events and exhibitions.
The survey is anonymous and takes just a few minutes. Your responses will help us understand how to improve experiences for our visitors and foster collaboration among arts organizations.
If you’d like a taste of what is in the exhibition, all of the Drawing the Line artist videos are online now. You can check them out on our YouTube channel.
Together with a group of guest musicians and activists from the 1960s/‘70s and the present, Miyamoto brings alive the dynamic moment when her 1973 album “A Grain of Sand: Music for the Struggle of Asians in America,” created a heartbeat for the Asian American Movement and shared rhythms with Black, Latino, and Native American cultural and political activists.
General admission is $10, students is $5, and it’s FREE for members of JANM and LACE! Tickets available at the door.
One last Drawing the Line update! We asked Yoshimi Kawashima (a former intern and current JANM volunteer!) to write an article about Gidra magazine for our Discover Nikkei site. Yoshimi is a current UCLA student active with the Nikkei Student Union (NSU), so thought she’d appreciate the assignment. We think she did a great job! GIDRA: The Voice of the Asian American Movement
Update (added 1/20/12): We’ve pulled together a Nikkei Album on our Discover Nikkei site with all of the Drawing the Line videos with brief summaries of each video. Check it out >>
When you walk into the museum now, one of the first things you notice as you enter the front doors to the Pavilion is a 1963 Corvette Sting Ray. I pass by the car every day on the way to my office, and I always see visitors stopping to admire it.
Photo by Gary Ono
But why a Corvette in the Japanese American National Museum?
Untitled drawing (Stingray), Larry Shinoda. Pencil on paper. Gift of the Shinoda Family, Japanese American National Museum (2003.124.3).
Upstairs in the exhibition galleries, we also have a number of his original drawings and sketches of various other cars he designed like the Mako Shark concept car, and the Boss Mustang. There’s also a bunch of historic photos, trophies, and other memorabilia that were donated to the museum by his family after his passing in 1997.
I have to admit that I don’t know much about cars, but the aerodynamic sporty style is very cool to see, and his personal story is very interesting too. His father died when he was a young child. From early on, he was always interested in cars and in drawing. He and his family were incarcerated at Manzanar during WWII. After the war, he grew up in Southern California where he built and raced cars, leading to his work designing and building cars.
The Watase Media Arts Center created a video about Shinoda for the exhibition with interviews with his sister and a long-time good friend:
By the way…Shinoda didn’t just design cars. He also worked on pretty much anything that moves such as Roger Penske’s race trailers, motor homes, tractors, big rig trucks, and even the Goodyear Blimp logo. And for those who were wondering…no, he’s not related to the other famous Shinoda that we have featured at the museum!
One more bit of trivia…the wedding dress currently on display in our Common Ground exhibition was made by Larry Shinoda’s mother!
For those who can’t make it down to see the exhibition or prefer to watch it from the comfort of your own home, we will be sharing them online over the next few months.
The first video up is about Gidra, the seminal magazine of the Asian American movement published from April 1969 to April 1974.
The opening celebration for Drawing the Line: Japanese American Art, Design & Activism in Post-War Los Angeles is just a couple of hours away!
Join us tonight from 5:30 to 8pm to celebrate the opening members, many of the artists and their families & friends, and special guests. There’ll be a special performance by Nobuko Miyamoto with Benny Yee & Atomic Nancy!
Our staff & volunteers have been working hard to get the show ready to open. Along with the artwork & artifacts, our Watase Media Arts Center has developed new video segments about each of the featured artists. You’ll be able to view them in the exhibition, but will also be available for sale on a DVD through the Museum Store. There’s also a Guide by Cell audio guide with audio clips from the interview.
Check out the updated exhibition site for more info on the Guide by Cell, to see the bios for the featured artists, plus links to full scans from 4 issues of Gidra magazine on Discover Nikkei! There’s also more exhibition-related public programs added (more to come!).
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.
This fall, the Japanese American National Museum is participating in Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A. 1945-1980, a project initiated from grants from the Getty Foundation. Pacific Standard Time is a collaboration of more than fifty cultural institutions across Southern California, which are coming together for six months beginning October 2011 to tell the story of the birth of the Los Angeles art scene and how it became a major new force in the art world. Each institution will make its own contribution to this grand-scale story of artistic innovation and social change, told through a multitude of simultaneous exhibitions and programs.
The Museum will open its new exhibition, Drawing the Line: Japanese American Art, Design & Activism in Pos-War L.A., with an opening event on Saturday, October 15, 2011 (more details to come!). Drawing the Line will feature works of art and design that give a sense of the complex role of cultural production in the creation of community in Japanese American Los Angeles.
All of the partners in this ground-breaking collaboration have been asked to issue a survey to its members and supporters in preparation for this project. The survey will collect general responses on attitudes about arts and culture in Los Angeles and throughout Southern California.
The questionnaire will take about 10-15 minutes to complete and your responses are confidential. The survey closes September 1st. Thank you!
