Yesterday, I drew this self portrait of me as someone else. You are probably thinking that it looks just like me, if I were somebody else. Thank you, that’s nice of you to say. I think next I’ll draw a self portrait of me when I was a whale, or maybe a throat lozenge. Is there a self portrait you’d like to see?

You can’t tell in the scan so well, but this one is made on two pieces of scraps that are glued together. I drew the bottom half of my face first and then decided I should draw a top half too, so I had to get another piece of paper. If you look, you can see a line through my eyes, that’s the second paper.

I’ve been painting my book project on big pieces of paper. I cut the pages down a little and I end up with lots of scraps of fancy rag paper. I like to take the left over scraps and paint on them. My elephant friend also lives on a scrap. There is no pressure to make something special when you are using a scrap. I like to paint big and stupid on them sometimes.

I painted a green kitty on another scrap too, but she’s not done. I can’t figure out what she is saying. She is hanging above my bed, so that I can listen to her each morning when I wake up and at night when I go to sleep. She is such a quiet kitty though. I’m going to have to listen harder.

I recently bought a Flip Ultra HD Video camera.  It’s a tiny, cell phone sized video camera that shoots on HD.  A few days later, a friend told me about a possible museum show consisting of videos shot on this new technology.  Last week I shot this video about becoming a Robot.  I hope you will check it out.

Pay’s Portfolio
I have known Pay Katusyuki for many years. He is one of my favorite artists and musicians and he and his music appear in many of my videos. He is also a “Ramen-Man” and works as a Ramen Chef. So he is a triple-artist…ramen, music, and paint.
My 5th video

introduces Pay, his work and what I think is his best song. He also appears in videos #16, #38 and #56. And his music appears in many others. I get emails from viewers every week asking how they can get Pay’s “Sick of Recorder” CD but unfortunately it is out of print.

I just got a message from Pay saying that he has a new band, so I’m excited to hear his new music. He also has a lot of really new paintings on his blog which I hope you will check out.

Pay’s Blog

If you watch the 5th video (linked above) from 2007, you will see that his work has changed and grown a lot since then.
Right now, Pay is looking for a gallery show outside of Japan.
One of the things I like about Pay’s paintings is that they are very different from what people in the US expect from modern Japanese art(such as Murakami and Kaikai Kiki artists). Pay works with abstracts and uses experimental mediums, sometimes he puts gauze or donut wrappers into his paintings and creates special textures with them. Some of Pay’s work is dark and lonesome feeling, while other pieces have a colorful kind of happiness in them. I don’t think I’ve seen anybody else who paints like Pay-kun.

Pay lives in Nagoya but he sometimes shows his work in the U.S. and Canada. He had work in the garage sale section of my gallery show at Billy Shire Fine Arts and also has shown with Cafemode at Shojin in Little Tokyo. You can currently see one of his pieces on display at
QIO select 11614 West Pico Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90064

The very nice people at Shojin in Little Tokyo have made me featured artist in their next CAFEMODE art show opening July 8th.  I will be at the opening from 7-11pm along with about 30 of my paintings.  Tonight’s opening will feature live music of musicians playing music on everyday objects.

There will also be work by the very handsome Remi February, Mari Araki and many others.

I had never heard of the field of Childern’s Fine Art’s until I met Price Deshaies at my show at Billy Shire Fine Arts last month.  My show featured a small section where visiting children were allowed to show their art.  One of these young artists, a six year old, was quite talented and apparently a local scout for young artists contacted Mr. Deshaies in New York City.  He flew out just to purchase this painting and meet with the young artist.  I happened to be in the gallery when was there to buy the painting and I got to ask him a few questions about the children’s art business.

This next video follows Mr. Deshaies as he scouts for young artists in elementary schools.

Yesterday I posted about Pierce Price Deshaies of Deshaies Fine Arts. He is considered one of the greatest experts on children’s fine art.  Here Mr. Deshaies tells us how to spot a fake piece of children’s art.

I rencently met Mr. Price Deshaies of Deshaies Fine Arts, one of America’s most famous galleries specializing in work by children.  I will have a video interview about my meeting with him coming soon, but first I wanted to post this video of his on youtube.  He represents some very interesting young abstract artists.

Do you know Tokyo 77?  It’s a tiny diner hidden in the alley of downtown culver city, right behind Bank of America, and Bottle Rock.  Tokyo 77 is an American style diner run by a multi-generation Japanese family.

(310) 204-5728

I recently took an American friend there for breakfast and he said it was as if the place was stuck in time.  He said it was like time traveling back to his childhood.  He was particularly impressed with signed headshot photos of “Ponch and John”.  Apparently they are characters from a  70’s American tv show called CHIPS.

I’ve been going to Tokyo 77 a lot for breakfast for the past couple of years.  You can get a full breakfast for $2.65.  Yah!  And everything is home made and very carefully prepared.  If you order poached eggs, they even give you three levels of firmness to choose from.

They have three $2.65 breakfast sets

1- 1 egg, home fries, toast, bacon or sausage.

2- Pancakes, toast, bacon or sausage

3- French Toast, Baconj or sausage

I usualy get the #1 special, oatmeal an coffee….it comes to a total of about $5.  I don’t think you could find a cheaper breakfast of that quality anywhere else in town.  I hope you’ll check it out if you live near Culver City.  They are open for breakfast and lunch from 7am-3-pm mon-fri  and 8:30am-2pm on Saturdays.

Tokyo 77CHIPSSpecials

More Images + Info »

Saturday, April 11th, was the opening of my show “Maximum Pleasant”, along with Torii B Cooper and Corey Sandelius at Billy Shire Fine Arts. Thanks to all the DAily Dujour readers who came to the opening There were quite a few people  and it was a very fun, and kind of overwhelming experience, as you will see in the video

There was an article about it in the LA Times on the 10th, which might have helped get some people in to the show.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/la-et-tanaka10-2009apr10,0,5583250.story

Someone from the Fine ARts LA blog did an interview with me about the show, which you can read at this link. He was a very nice man.

http://www.fineartsla.com/ken-tanaka-loves-you.html

Yes, It’s just two more days till my opening “Maximum Pleasant” at Billy Shire Fine Arts.  I’ve had a pretty stressful 2 weeks, but yesterday I started setting up an many people volunteered to help, so it was very nice.  The show is almost ready.

If you are visiting for the show, you can check out other openings right in the area at Blum and Poe, The Constant Gallery, Corey Helford and of course Tessar Lo and Eric Fortune at Lebasse Projects.  All the galleries are in walking distance of each other.  There is also the Giant Robot show at Scion Space just a short drive from there.

This video shows a sneak peek at my space in the gallery and just a few items.

I was recently interviewed at the Royal-T maid cafe for the Kevin and Bean show.  Apparently it’s quite a famous show in Los Angeles.  I don’t listen to the radio so I did not know about it.

This video shows the interview, and also one on Korean TV’s KBS.

My show is 2 weeks away and it’s getting a little stressful.  Making the art is fun, but doing the other errands neccessary to get the show ready is very stressful for me.  Making this postcard would be easy for most people, but I don’t really know how to use photoshop or how to size images.  It took me several hours just to make a simple postcard.

I got it from next day flyers in Burbank.  They are so cheap. I think 500 postcards was about $35 and I also got 500 business cards for $13.00  So if you need that knda stuff go to Nextdayflyers.com

The dog drawing on this postcard is really big.  I drew it on old wallpaper I bought at out of the closet thrift store.  I think it’s about 3 ft by 3 ft.  I drew the dog, and I couldn’t figure out what he was saying.  I hung the drawing up in my room, by my bed. I listened to him every morning and night, but I couldn’t hear what he was trying to say.  Then finally I understood what his eyes were telling me “I’m waiting for you to notice me.”  I notice him, but his expression didn’t change.  How can I make this dog happy?

"I'm waiting for you to notice me"Back of my PostcardMy business card