After so long of a concentration on 3-D work it was fun last week to take a break and actually sit at my drawing board.
The opportunity arose because I was asked to be a part of a group effort to help raise needed funds for the ‘Totoro’s Forest’ project (more on that a bit later). I can still remember the magic of first viewing ‘My Neighbor Totoro’, so many years ago that it was only available on pirated Japanese language VHS tapes. The director’s art and story however completely transcended any language barrier there might have been. I thought then and I am even more certain now, that the world would be a better place if there were more minds like Mr. Miyazaki’s in it.
Sayama Forest, located outside of Tokyo, served as the inspiration for this exceptional film (my very favorite movie, animated or otherwise). Over the intervening years it has become encroached upon by housing developments. For many years now there has been an on-going effort from Mr, Miyazaki and the Totoro Forest Foundation that he established to purchase as much as possible of the acreage there and place it into a national trust.
Now, Pixar art director, Dice Tsutsumi has asked a group of artists to “paint their own personal Totoros”. Over a hundred artists, mostly from the animation field have responded. A exhibition of some 60 of these pieces will be held at the San Francisco Cartoon Art Museum this fall. A handsome art book will follow. All of the art will be auctioned and whatever profit is raised from those sales as well as the book will all go to the foundation and the purchase of more of that sublime landscape.
All the very amazing art for the ‘Totoro Forest Project’ is now available to be viewed:
http://totoroforestproject.org/
Do yourself a favor and go take a long look at all the lovely images over there!
I want to thank Dice and more importantly Mr. Miyazaki for letting me play in his lovely sandbox and hopefully give some of that magic back to the world.
The extensive website featuring most of this newly created and crazy good artwork will go live soon and I’ll provide a link to it then.
Enjoy,
Charles
0 thoughts on “A Break from sculpting”
That’s really lovely, and so awesome that you are participating!
You know, when I read about this over at Irene’s blog I thought “Charles HAS to be participating in THIS” and sure enough! What a wonderful way to protect some forest. I just watched a special about how most of Japan’s landscape is uninhabitable so I imagine it’s an uphill battle with housing projects on actual habitable land. I can’t wait to get my hands on one of those art books.
Though…I can’t ‘spot the Totoro’ in this piece….hmmm.