Rotofugi: Dalek and Steve Seeley

So, I went to Rotofugi the other day for their new store opening/ art exhibit. One of my favorite artists, James Marshall, aka DALEK, was showing some new artworks, so it was important for me to visit. Going to art openings with artists that I like is a big part of my love of cities and I am determined to be at these sorts of things in Chicago.

Dalek is known for a character he created called a Space Monkey. He draws and paints it in different styles and mediums, but it's always very recognizable and fun. To me, and to most, it looks like a contorted mouse. I love the Space Monkey because it is born out of a mix of American street graffiti and Japanese pop art.

Space Monkey Painting

Space Monkey Toy

He also does geometric abstract paintings, which he was displaying at Rotofugi the night I was there. These paintings from a far are free and bright and representative of similar pop and graffiti styles of art. Up close, they show a more meticulous form that details Dalek's care and attention. I think he goes by James Marshall now, having almost completely stopped using the Space Monkey in his current artwork.

The other artist showing his work at Rotofugi was Steve Seeley. Steve Seeley paints super heroes and D-list celebrities on paper that has images of nature printed on the surface. A theme in his works the night I visited was depicting the superhero capes and clothing as bandanas, adding an urban edge to a stereotypically nerdy genre. He depicted Batman and Superman as Tupac and Biggie. He posed Paris Hilton with morphed rottweiler legs. He put Miley Cyrus inside of a bear. He morphed deer horns into Victorian chandeliers. I really loved his works.

Batman riding a bear, then surfing a deer.

The bandanna clothes.

All of these images and others that I talked about can be seen larger, in more detail, and in context of the full exhibit at Rotofugi's website through the links that I posted. Another interesting bit is that both of these artists are connected to Chicago. Dalek studied at the Art Institute of Chicago, and Steve Seeley grew up here. 面白い、ね?

Designer Vinyl Toys: America

This post is the second to my previous post, and may not make sense out of context.

As with all evolutions of creativity, the form and concepts are distinct to their creator. Brightly colored conceptual monsters can trigger other forms of inspiration, and the cultural differences from Japan to America have allowed for fluid interpretations. Well known toy makers and distributors in America include Kid Robot, Super7, Double Punch in San Fransisco, and Rotofugi in Chicago.

With Bwana Spoons at Double Punch

I was really lucky during my first trip to San Fransisco, Bwana Spoons was painting a mural on the wall. He signed a photo book I bought of his Edward the Gator vinyl toy. He was kind and not at all upset by my interruption. Bwana Spoons a really good example of a vinyl toy artist in America. The whole subculture of vinyl toys is still very much immersed in Japan. Everyone knows about Kaiju. Bwana Spoons is a painter and designer and has made really good connections and choices. When I lived in Japan I was excited to see that Bwana Spoons was a staple at Gargamel, often designing toys with Gargamel's designers. I am so happy a bit of the mural is shown in the background, because that image is exactly his style. He uses bright, fun colors, and has a distinct California feel.

There are noticeable differences between Japanese and American vinyl toy aesthetic. Japanese toys tend to draw from their roots of 60s and 70s Kaiju characters. American toys are more rounded, probably inspired by graffiti and underground urban culture. People in America who design toys also design shoes and have painting exhibitions and create graphic novels. Japanese toys are considerably more grotesque and alien. American toys, inexplicably, are cuter, maybe more marketable...? I like both styles. I find it difficult to describe, but I hope I am not far off base in my generalization.

Kaws's Bounty Hunter: Rotofugi, USA

Hedora: Secret Base, Japan

Designer Vinyl Toys:Japan: A Rough Introduction

Kaiju, 怪獣、means "monster" in Japanese. Monster characters are very popular in Japanese culture, and while Godzilla and King Kong are the most well known in America, there are other, more creative versions that are well known in Japan. 

Gamera: Turtle Monster

Gigan: Godzilla Opponent

My favorite aspect of Kaiju is the subculture of designing vinyl toys after well known monsters, showcasing an evolution from action figures to underground pop art. The following two photos are from a store called Gargamel based out of Koenji, Tokyo, Japan.

Designer vinyl toys are usually created by a toy company that specializes in this sort of thing, as well as established artists who are commissioned by the toy company to design a toy. The toy company is not a big corporation like Matel or Hasbro, rather specifically niche centered and small. Secretbase, for example, is a store based out of Harajuku, Tokyo, Japan. Secretbase first created a design for a figure, then did interesting coloring on the figure, then had the capabilities to expand to new figures, collaborate with other toy stores and designers, and ultimately pair up with cool artists, which allowed for international expansion and recognition.

An Astro Brain toy from Secret Base

Can you see the evolution? Monster movies like Godzilla and Gamera inspired a lot artists and companies as a merchandise opportunity, just like Star Wars and X-Men more recently. First an action figure is created in the monsters likeness, then more creative people who do not necessarily work for big toy companies create their own designs. Some of the most interesting toys are just simple figures that have been painted with unexpected colors, like lime green and fluorescent pink. Other examples could be popping the heads off of a Snoopy toy and putting Godzilla's head on top. These sorts of creations evolve into people creating their own monsters, completely independent of a film or book or other sort of inspiration.


Next post will be about America's take on Japan's Kaiju toys.

Postcards: From Miyajima, Japan

The following are meant to be in contrast with my photos from the Porcupine Mountains State Park in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. These photos were primarily taken during Golden Week in 2009 when my mom came for a visit from the US. Golden Week is the week from April 29- May 5 in Japan that consists of 5 nearly consecutive holiday's, and the majority of the country is given time off. Golden Week is one of the two biggest travelling periods of the year in Japan.

Miyajima is a small island off the coast of Japan, just outside of Hiroshima. There is not a bridge connecting the mainland to the small island, so the primary mode of transport between the two land masses is by ferry.

The first thing to see as the ferry pulls into the dock.

The sign is warning against touching deer with antlers. The deer is saying "I'm dangerous!"

 

 

 

 

Paper eating, antlerless deer.

Map for touring around Miyajima and the Ropeways.

The paths are well paved with little to no real woodsy type of trekking. The idea is that people could walk Mt. Misen without much effort or need for a proper hiking shoe, as seen below:

This was taken a considerable distance up the mountain. Those heels are roughly 3" high.

Well paved inclines and stone steps.

Postcards: From The North Woods #2

Randall's Bakery

If you ever find yourself in the U.P., I recommend coffee and pasties from Randall's Bakery in Wakefield, Michigan.

The bakery boasts numerous kinds of cookies, flakey crusted treats, and coffee Agent Cooper would deem "Damn fine!"

Postcards: From The North Woods #1

A lot of Northern Wisconsin and Michigan reminded me of Twin Peaks. I had to pull over and take a photo of The Great Northern Motel in honor of David Lynch's Great Northern Lodge.

Them North Woods, pt. 1

I have just returned from a 5 day stay in Minocqua, Wisconsin. Minocqua is very close to Michigan's Upper Peninsula and less than an hour drive to Lake Superior. The town has a population less than 5,000, has a lot of lakes either in the town itself or the surrounding towns, and is extremely touristy. The following map is great because it highlights both Chicago and Minocqua, about a 7 hour drive apart.

My wonderful stepdad is a partial owner of a cabin in Minocqua and this is only the second time I have been up there during the summer. Usually we go up in the winter for skiing and snowboarding the bigger mountains in the U.P. as a cheaper and more convenient alternative to travelling to Colorado. The cabin is big, in the woods, and on a lake.

The Cabin

The Woods In Front Of The Cabin

Being in the north woods of Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula is very different from the Midwest of which I am familiar. From Chicago all the way south to Indianapolis in Indiana, the landscape is flat, corn country. Wisconsin is very different. The land is hilly, there are cow pastures and forests. At the high school in Minocqua, they offer lumberjack type classes because a post-high school career is often involved directly in the logging field. The newspapers and radio programs tend to be geared conservatively. The Wisconsin primary was September 14th, so the newspapers were filled with political spreads of the two Republican gubernatorial candidates, Mark Neumann and Scott Walker. The opinion page included a letter condemning Democratic support of the Mosque that is meant to be built near Ground Zero. At a coffee shop, I heard a man recounting war stories while praising Glen Beck. And on and on. The north woods political climate emphasized my position as a tourist, an outsider who could not comfortably live in such a small town year round. So, as a tourist, I had a lot of outdoor fun with my parents.

We went hiking in the Porcupine Mountains, "The Porkies", located on Lake Superior. Mom trailed behind taking photos of the Presque Isle Lake waterfalls and perching herself precariously on cliffs. The one on the left in the photo looks harmless enough, but recounted stories to me of people who became easily  lost for days in the woods for not staying on the trail and of bears who live and wonder the woods regularly. This sign we saw in the parking lot reinforced the warnings. "It could be you!" duh duh dunnnn.

The falls and Lake Superior were particular highlights for me, as I've never been that far north.

Porcupine Mountain Falls, Presque Isle River Trail

Traveler from Deston, FL on a cross country motorcycle trip. 

Lake Superior

Lake Superior

The Porcupine Mountains are vast. The state park extends across the northwestern Upper Peninsula of Michigan and includes 60,000 acres. The Porkies trip was only one day for us, but there are campsites and could be made into a week long trek if that were your thing.

Read By Country (Paint By Number) and Trees

I am rereading Kurt Vonnegut's 1973 novel, Breakfast of Champions. I like reading, and I think I used to love reading a lot more than I do now. I become totally consumed in novels and it is always hard for me to choose one to read following one I particularly enjoyed. I usually need a lot of time in between.

When I first moved to Japan, and really throughout my time there, I read a lot of Japanese authors. Murakami Haruki, Kirino Natsuo, Abe Kobo, Murakami Ryu, and Yoshimoto Banana. Murakami Haruki is my favorite and I read Kafka on the Shore my first week back in the States. It mostly took place in places I was familiar with like Tokyo and Nakano (a neighborhood in Tokyo), and the main character traveled to the island of Shikoku which I have been to a number of times. Reading his novels while being in Japan and now is a more intimate experience because I know the places he mentions and it's my little secret that not many other people share with me.

Like Murakami, Kurt Vonnegut is very popular amongst younger people that first start reading him in high school through a friend or an ex-boyfriend and then they introduce his novels to other people and its a great little appreciation club. A literary theory professor of mine at IU and I exchanged emails about good and bad literature. He said something that put Kurt Vonnegut in the same category as Chuck Palahniuk, discarding both as easy to read trash, more or less. I've never been a huge Palahniuk fan. I liked his short story Guts, but I can read his books in an hour and I sort of only discovered him in college, so maybe I was too old for his style by that point anyway. Regardless, I should have given up on my English major at that point. I never felt totally comfortable as an English major, but I didn't know where else to go at the time. The point is that I feel deeply about Vonnegut and what he has written. I think his books helped me develop a smart sense of humor and of life and I like those things about myself the most. I was terribly sad when he died just one month before my graduation in 2007.

Kurt Vonnegut is from Indianapolis, Indiana. His novels make me feel connected to America and happy to be American. Other Americans that I like include Jay-Z, Emily Dickinson, David Lynch, Aretha Franklin, and Jon Stewart. So I am reading Breakfast of Champions and it is easing me back into the scheme of things.


I want to do some comparisons. Tokyo VS. Chicago. I am actually really enjoying Chicago's aesthetic. Recently I wrote an email to a friend that began innocently enough, but ended in a compare/contrast deconstruction of Tokyo's vs. Chicago's architectural aesthetic. A tangential tirade of sorts. I want to not do that here.

Following is a street in Tokyo's Itabashi neighborhood. It was taken while on a "KNOW YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD" walk that some friends and I were known to take on uneventful days off. Itabashi is walkable from Ikebukuro, the neighborhood where I lived.

This image is unusual because most streets are not this well manicured or beautifully canopied. So out of the ordinary that I remember thinking it reminded me of America. Trees are not this big in Tokyo, and apartments are not this old. The basics that distinguish the buildings as Japanese are here, though. The large balconies to hang dry clothes, the boxy-ness of the buildings, the overly protective safety rails on the side of the walkways. The cleanliness of the road itself. You could eat off that road. I chose this photo because this afternoon I was touring my neighborhood in Chicago and look:

Canopied sidewalk! Trees are abundant in Chicago and it's good!!

Northwest Indiana

I love Japan. I had the best experience of my life there. I have no idea what to expect from my life now that I have left. I don't know where I fit in to America or Chicago or even in stores. Everything in the States is confusing to me. Being able to communicate in English, of course, is easy, but there are nuances of everyday circumstances that are no longer innate to me. Interacting with a waitress while I am eating out is unfamiliar and going to the grocery store takes at least an hour. I cannot explain everything all in one post. I will just start with with some photos of my house and new American-ness.

This is from the airplane flying in to Chicago. Chicago is the largest city in the Midwest of the United States. The Midwest is the north-central part of the United States that is primarily congregated around Lake Michigan, but also touches Lake Superior, Lake Huron, and Lake Erie of the Great Lakes. Most Midwesterners would say Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota are the core of the region. I was mostly raised in Indiana, but have lived all over both the Midwest and East coast. Here is what a typical highway looks like in Indiana:

Notice the seemingly endless field of corn and the nothingness on either side of the road. Due to extremely high volumes of pollution that blow over Northwest Indiana and Northeast Chicago from the US Steel Mills in Gary, IN, the region has the most beautiful sunsets. The oranges and pinks in the photo are electric.

My parents live right on Lake Michigan, so this is the view from the back of their house. The sun is setting on the left and if you get close to the computer, you can see Chicago's silhouette on the right.

The front garden.

My dog, Tippie, and I in the front garden.

When entering my parents village, you must first cross train tracks. Trains are mostly cargo transporters in America. In Japan, I almost never saw cargo transporting trains. Japan is conveniently set up for public transportation, primarily by train, but also by bus. Traveling in Japan is easy and extremely accessible by public transport. I never drove during my three years in Japan. In America, unless living in a city like NYC, Chicago, Denver, or, maybe, San Fransisco, one must have a car. A person would feel stranded and very well could be without a motorized vehicle in America. [Another thing: The town I grew up in has many railroad stops. It is easy to forget that you are constantly driving over railroad stops, but you are. When I was in high school, I feel like every year someone died from being hit by a train while crossing the tracks. There are crosses  (you know the religious symbol?) near almost every railroad crossing in memoriam of someone who died trying to beat the train before it came. Isn't that the saddest thing?]

I wish there was more graffiti on these trains.