throwback thursday: hatsume festival

It was just a few short years ago that we attended the Hatsume Festival at the Morikami ...

Posing in the garden

Checking out some cool vendors

Child and mother both look suspiciously at the photographer. Hmmm ...
Catbus!

Cute toothless smile

grrroowwlll

Last weekend the kid and I attended the Hatsume Fair at one of our favorite haunts, the Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens. One of the highlights of the afternoon was face painting for Junior. She makes an adorable snow leopard, doncha think?

mariko kusumoto

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, one of the highlights of a recent visit to the Morikami Museum was the artwork of Mariko Kusumoto.

Kaiten Zushi, closed and open

There is so much that I love about her work. The attention to detail, the humor, the sheer skill involved, the scale. I could go on and on. There is a suggestion of the early Surrealists, Joseph Cornell, and a dash of Monty Python, as well as her own, very Japanese sensibility. There is also an overwhelming sense of the female about these pieces. I am so glad I was lucky enough to discover her work, as the show was closing the weekend we visited.

The only disappointment was in the museum store. No catalog. The Morikami was selling some jewelry she had created — they were pretty brushed-silver pieces, but nothing like the whimsical pieces in the show. An opportunity missed. Now if they had been selling this clever brooch ...

The artwork was exhibited under glass. They just begged to be played with. Thankfully, there was this wonderful video on display, which helps bring the work to life. I will definitely be keeping track of Kusumoto's work in future.

The artist's bio from the Morikami:

"Mariko Kusumoto is a mixed media artist known for creating elaborate collages of miniature interactive worlds in metal boxes with unique metalsmithing techniques. Her work is imbued with her memories in Japan and of growing up in a 400-year old Japanese temple, where her father was a Buddhist priest. Ms. Kusumoto is skilled in a variety of art media. She studied oil painting and printmaking at Musashino Art College, Tokyo, and in 1995, received an MFA in printmaking at the Academy of Art College in San Francisco. Her works have been exhibited in numerous museums and galleries. She has been featured in over 15 publications and conducted workshops and lectures at various venues."

scenes from (last) weekend

We spent Mother's Day at the Morikami Museum, a beautiful local museum and Japanese garden. We had a bento box lunch after waiting an hour to get seated — luckily we could peruse the art galleries while we waited for a table, and saw a fantastic show by metal artist Mariko Kusumoto — more on that later. The gift shop was also a blast, as the kid got a Totoro t-shirt, which she had to don immediately, and I got a cat-bus wallet. If you haven't seen Hayao Miyazaki's brilliant My Neighbor Totoro (or any of his other films) than you won't understand our geeky thrill, and you should rectify that situation immediately.

"Totoro, To-to-ro!"

At the Morikami

The history behind the Morikami, from its website:

"In 1904, Jo Sakai, a recent graduate of New York University, returned to his homeland of Miyazu, Japan, to organize a group of pioneering farmers and lead them to what is now northern Boca Raton ... they formed a farming colony they named Yamato, an ancient name for Japan. ... Ultimately, the results of their crop experimentation were disappointing ... By the 1920s, the community, which had never grown beyond 30 to 35 individuals, finally surrendered its dream. One by one, the families left for other parts of the United States or returned to Japan.

George S. Morikami in his pineapple field — Delray Beach, Florida, from Florida Memory

... One settler remained. His name was George Sukeji Morikami. A modest farmer, George continued to cultivate local crops and act as a fruit and vegetable wholesaler. In the mid-1970s, when George was in his 80s, he donated his land to Palm Beach County with the wish to preserve it as a park and to honor the memory of the Yamato Colony. ... With the opening of The Morikami Museum and Japanese Gardens, a living monument was created, building a bridge of cultural understanding between George Morikami’s two homelands."

Related articles

• 'Ghosts, Goblins and Gods' at Morikami (pbpulse.com)

hatsume festival

Last weekend we went to the Morikami Museum to the Hatsume festival.

There were karate kids, anime kids,

and my kid ...

... in the beautiful setting.

Unfortunately the line for the cafe was so long we weren't able to get a bento box, but we had a fun time regardless. It shouldn't be as crowded this weekend. Hmmm ...

Related articles

• Despite shadow of Japan's tragedy, Morikami still colorful, celebrative at Hatsume Fair (pbpulse.com)