Sunday LOVE MOVEMENT in Residence

Some 600 people attended last Saturday night’s opening of LOVE MOVEMENT, and on Sunday, many fans returned for a more intimate afternoon of art and music with the Japanese artists.

Here’s Hideki Shiroma putting the finishing touches on a wooden paddle, now in the collection of yours truly.

Shin Tanaka lays down a wash of green on this blank vinyl T-Boy. Astute readers will likely (and correctly) presume this one is destined for my collection as well…

Matt of Toypinionated drove all the way up from Southern California to be a part of this. That’s friendship! Thanks Matt! He picked up the exclusive LOVE MOVEMENT white/pink edition of T-Boy and a blank Dankeschoen bear as souvenirs. These are currently for sale at the San Francisco Superfrog gallery and soon to be available online.

Shin and Nao were happy to sign the set.

This almost didn’t happen, but thanks to Adrienne of Nice Paper Toys, Shin was able to demonstrate the cutting, folding and gluing of T-Danke Boy. You can download and make your own T-Danke Boy for free here.

Shin also made personalized paper souvenirs for the growing crowd. Some had come for the demonstrations, and others filtered up from the lower floors looking to find the source of the beatboxing and violin.

Spending so much time over the weekend with champion beatboxer Kaz and extreme violinist Nanaco, this music’s now on rotation in my head. If there’s ever a CD, I’ll let you know. I have another video clip where Kaz and Nanaco are doing “Stand By Me, which is completely awesome, but my Internet connection is being melodramatic right now, thus preventing the upload.

I love this one.

This one’s pretty good, too.

By the end of the day, we had made new friends, and there was even a love connection between two attendees. Everyone was sad to see Super Cooper go home, but we did our best to put on brave smiles. New People has promised to bring back the artists, possibly for next summer’s J-POP Summit. Stay tuned, and don’t forget, LOVE MOVEMENT is on exhibit through January 16th. If you’re going, give me a shout!