Labbit Custom Show UPDATE

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.

Gardener’s Haiku Museum Mug

Curator or Shopkeeper?

The Museum Store was recently featured in an article in Hyphen Magazine, entitled “Curated Retail”. Ironically, I just read an article about how the word “curate” has been appropriated by all things pop-culture and is consequently over (and incorrectly) used.

But for years I have been describing the work we do in the Store as curatorial. This isn’t necessarily the case with every museum store, although it should be. Selecting or developing merchandise that reflects the museum’s mission is harder than slapping your name and logo on to an otherwise generic souvenir (magnet, spoon, thimble, or—shiver—shot glass.) If a person buys something from our store without going into the exhibitions, I want that person to remember where that object came from and take away a story that will make the name of the museum resonate in his/her memory whenever it is handled. Maybe next time, they will actually come into the museum to see the exhibitions!

Gardener’s Haiku Museum MugWhen a customer wants to know where our logo mugs are, I steer them to the flowerpot mugs produced for Landscaping America. The mugs include a haiku written by a Japanese American gardener. They are also printed with lead-free glaze, which I felt was an important (and surprisingly difficult to implement) aspect for a product that represented custodians of the garden.

We don’t have a lot of the expected tchotchkes in a museum store, but each item has been selected for how it relates or reflects Japanese Americans and their culture—which is vast and diverse. It rankles me to meet with a vendor who assures me that his product is a “hot-seller in ALL the museum stores” as if all museums had the same mission or should sell the same things. And don’t get me started on shot glasses—the only places where I think these really work are at Alcatraz (they have Mug Shots) or museums that are about the Old West or cocktails.

Member Appreciation Days!

Member Appreciation Days is this Friday, May 20th through Sunday, May 22nd. We’ll be giving 20% off store purchases to our museum members and to the members of the following cultural institutions. So sign up for a JANM membership and start your museum shopping spree on the cheap!

Not in the L.A. area? We’re honoring the 20% discount at our Museum Store Online too!

Check janmstore.com for full details >>

  • Autry National Center
    www.theautry.org • 323.677.2000
  • Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
    www.olacathedral.org • 213.680.5277
  • Chinese American Museum
    www.camla.org • 213.485.8567
  • Craft and Folk Art Museum (Saturday & Sunday only)
    www.cafam.org • 323.937.4230 x22
  • FIDM Museum & Galleries (Friday & Saturday only)
    www.fidmmuseum.org • 213.623.5821
  • Fowler Museum at UCLA
    www.fowler.ucla.edu • 310.206.7004
  • Heritage Square Museum
    www.heritagesquare.org • 323.225.2700
  • J. Paul Getty Museum (both locations)
    www.getty.edu • 310.440.7300
  • LA Phil Store at Walt Disney Concert Hall
    www.laphilstore.com • 213.972.3440
  • The Library Store at Central Library (Friday & Saturday only)
    www.librarystore.org • 213.228.7550
  • The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA)
    (Grand Ave. location only)

    MOCA Grand Avenue • 213.621.1710
    www.moca.org
  • Museum of Latin American Art
    www.molaa.org • 562.216.4102
  • Orange County Museum of Art
    www.ocma.net • 949.759.1122
  • Pacific Asia Museum
    www.pacificasiamuseum.org • 626.449.2742 x20
  • Pasadena Museum of California Art
    www.pmcaonline.org • 626.568.3665
  • Pasadena Museum of History
    www.pasadenahistory.org • 626.577.1660
  • San Diego Museum of Art
    www.TheSanDiegoMuseumofArt.org • 619.696.1971
  • Santa Monica Museum of Art (Friday & Saturday only)
    www.smmoa.org • 310.586.6488
  • Skirball Cultural Center
    www.skirball.org • 310.440.4505