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.
Our third auction ended on Sunday and the Labbit by higashi glaser closed at $760.00! The winner was actually a last minute bidder. Most of the bidding was between two people and was hot and heavy. It was a huge surprise ending, the kind that can only happen on eBay!
All of the proceeds from the auction have been donated to the Museum, so thank you to the artists and the new owner of this beautiful piece.
I am going to miss “Stumped” and all of the Labbits as they go to their new homes this week.
Stay tuned for Stan Sakai’s auction coming up on October 1. It should be a cliff-hanger!
I’ve been so busy trying to get the catalog out that I haven’t had a chance to check eBay on the progress of the auction. I was thinking on Tuesday that maybe I could actually win the auction if no one bid. But checking today I see that sadly the price has gone way out of my budget!
You still have a chance to bid on this incredibly creative “hapa” Labbit! Since the opening, Kip has enhanced the piece to include ikebana kenzan to make flower arranging simpler.
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!
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,..)
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.
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.
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!
