Reminder to all chaboo artists who havent been photographed yet:  The final photo shoot is Feb15,16 mid February, just as promised.

The show is first week of march at the Ford Building.

Details coming soon.

Exciting Sunday at the shop today.  My friends produce a video podcast called the Penny Jam of local bands in unconventional locations and they asked if they could film in the shop.  Several chaboos make a cameo appearance in the background (behind the drummer).  Here is Celilo live at TomitaDesigns~! (I will never say this again)

Penny Jam at the shop from Ken Tomita on Vimeo.

The Penny Jam is an almost-weekly video podcast filmed in Portland Oregon. In each episode we film a different band playing in an unconventional performance space, helping music escape from the often-drab environs of dark, neon, concert venues. We are interested in documenting as wide a variety of musical styles as possible, including indie rock, bluegrass, electronic, hip-hop, jazz etc, etc

Check out their website www.thepennyjam.com I will post again when the music video is edited and up on their site.

Penny Jam at the shop from Ken Tomita on Vimeo.
Pretty weird seeing a band play in my shop.  Context is everything… stretch the mind…

We have officially secured a venue!  Ive committed to doing the show at the Ford Building on SE Division between 10th and 11th.  They used to make model Ts there back in the day and now the space has been renovated for retail and studio space.  The central corridor is gallery space Gallery Homeland, run by curator Paul Middendorf.  The central space is about 2000sqft and we can use over 3000sqft of adjacent vacant rooms as well for the show.

Paul has been nice enough to work with us and let us do the show without paying commissions on the chaboos.  I had to give up free beer.  Sorry everyone- but itll be worth it!  Artists make more money and customers get lower prices - everyone wins!

The show will be sometime during the first week of March.  I will be posting as specifics become more clear.  Thank you everyone who helped me look for a space.

I had the chance to go to the opening last wed at the Mark Woolley gallery featuring two chaboo artists, Amy Ruppel and Evan B. Harris.  The show was to feature their individual work and also some collaborative pieces they did.   I had never seen their work in person nor met them before so I was psyched to go.

The arrangement was such that you could see each artist individually and the collaboration in the same space.  Amy’s work on the left and Evans work on the right.  In between those two was the series that they collaborated on- Amy did the rabbit and Evan did the flora into the wax around it in this example.  The work was… well it speaks for itself- beautiful!  The energy that collaboration can create was really showcased here and encouraging for me.

It was great to meet them and get an insiders scoop on their process and inspiration.  We talked briefly about their chaboo ideas.  Amy wants to do something with thick pieces of felt and Evan wants to build and paint a ship motif onto a chaboo.  Ambitious! Im in! Their enthusiasm for trying something new is awesome.

The show continues through Feb 28 at the Mark Woolley gallery.  Check it!

Good news.  I have secured FREE BEER through Widmer Brothers for the Project Chaboo show.  Ya- you heard the magic words!  Now that I have everyones attention…  I NEED HELP!

We need a venue for the Project Chaboo show.  We have 40 chaboo artists and we can expect a crowd of 500 or so.  We need 3000-4000sqft of exhibition space, ideally one large room.  Id like to rent a space for a night with a flat fee so the artists dont have to pay commissions.  Date: sometime in March

Please contact me with any ideas/suggestions/connections you may have.  This project is possible through everyones contributions!