Tag Archives: wasen models display

Wasen Model Table at the SF Asian Art Museum, October 17th

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Sunday, October 17th, 2021, is Japan Day at San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum. A friend of mine is working with the museum on this and asked me to participate by displaying my wasen models. So, I will be setting up a table to display some models and, hopefully, have some room to do a little work on them – something like I did at the Wooden Boat Festival in Port Towsend a couple years ago.

Me, at the 3-day Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival.

I’m hoping to have enough room to set up a few models in a nice, formal display with accompanying information. Since it’s at the Asian Art Museum, I’ll probably try to chose models that I can tie to artwork as much as possible. In general, I expect to make this a bit of a cross between the Port Towsend event above, and the Japantown display below.

One several (seven?) wasen model displays I’ve had at the Japan Center’s East Mall in San Franciso.

By the way, I haven’t been able to set up the Japantown display in over a year due to Covid related bank policies. Wouldn’t have gotten much in the way of visitors anyway. However, with this October event, and with so much having reopened, I’m reaching out to Union Bank, who operates this community room and its display window.

I’m hoping I can have something set up there maybe in September, leading up to the Japan Day event. We’ll see what I find out when I hear back from the bank contact. Of course, I’ll keep you posted.

As for the Asian Art Museum, my Japanese Boats Display is supposed to be set up from approximately 11am to 5pm on Sunday, October 17th, on the first floor of the museum. I won’t be alone there. Two other ‘stations’ are scheduled to be set up there as well, including a Origami Irises display and a Toro Nagashi Paper Lanterns display (floating lanterns).

Make sure to mark your calendars, so you can stop by and visit me if you’re in the area!

Ω

9th Japanese Boat Models Display, October 2019 – Extended

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Setting up and taking down my display of Japanese boats takes a lot of time and effort, and when I don’t have the display up, I have to have a place to put all the models at home. So, a couple days ago, I contacted Union Bank and arranged to have my Japanese boats display extended for an additional two weeks.

If you happen to be in the San Francisco Bay Area sometime before November 15, 2019, you can still see my display in the Union Bank Community Room window of the Japan Center’s East Mall (Mikyako Mall), which is located between Geary in Post near Buchannan street.

In the future, I’d like to make more instructional, perhaps focussing on a certain type of boat or certain region and how they’re used or how they’ve evolved. Unfortunately, that’s going to take a lot of work, lots of study, and more models than I have now.

I figure I’ll probably have to stick with this display as it is at least one more time. Next time, I should be able to include the Kitamaebune and it would be nice to have both that and a Higaki Kaisen model shown together, but that means I have to not only get the Kitamaebune finished, but I have to build another Higaki Kaisen as well.

Well, one thing at a time. Ω

9th Japanese Boat Models Display, October 2019

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I just finished setting up Japanese wasen model display 9.0 yesterday. I was a bit late setting it up, which I had planned to set up 3 days earlier, but it was difficult for me to arrange my time this week for various reasons. But, it’s up now in the display window of the Union Bank community room inside the Japan Center’s East Mall in San Francisco.

Due to the sale of my Higaki Kaisen model, and to keep things manageable, I ended up scaling back to 6 models, plus a panel of photos. This fills up the display window just fine and allows me to set up more easily.

In fact, I have traditionally set aside 2 hours to handle the setup, but I must have become more efficient at it, as it only took me an hour to get the key from the bank, carry everything from my car, and set up the display.

The display includes:

  • Hacchoro – 1/24-scale Woody Joe kit of a Yaizu bonito fishing boat.
  • Yakatabune – 1/24-scale Woody Joe kit of an Edo period pleasure boat.
  • Tosa Wasen – 1/10-scale Thermal Studio kit of a Tosa fishing boat.
  • Kamakura period Umibune – a 1/50 scale model of a trade boat, c. 1300AD
  • Urayasu Bekabune – 1/10-scale model of a Tōkyō Bay seaweed gathering boat.
  • Kobaya – 1/32-scale model of a boat belonging to the Shōgun’s government.

Noticeably missing, at least to me, is a model of a bezaisen, or Japanese coastal transport, as I sold my Higaki Kaisen model last month and haven’t completed the Kitamaebune model yet.

The Kitamaebune will be ready for the next display, I’m sure. And, I do have another Higaki Kaisen kit. So, by that time, mabye I’ll have the second Higaki Kaisen model ready too.

One thing different about this display is that while I was setting up the display window, a cat wandered through the East Mall and sat out in front by the bunraku puppet display. While the cat didn’t specifically come and look at the display, I like to think that he or she brought by some good luck to the display.

The display will run through at least the end of October. Given that I was several days behind schedule on the setup, perhaps I’ll leave it up a little longer if the window space is available. Ω

8th Japanese Boat Models Display, February 2019

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My next display of models of Japanese traditional boats will run through the month of February in the display window of the Union Bank community room inside the Japan Center’s East Mall. It’s hard to believe, but this will be my eighth such display.

I made two more tall stands this week, giving me a total of seven stands, which is enough to put all the models I brought last time up on stands, getting them up off the floor of the display window. However, I’d like to put my Kobaya model on display too, even though it’s not yet complete – I did the same thing with my Kamakura period Umi-bune last time, which is done now.

The Kobayabune, though not complete, is my latest addition to the Japanese boats display.

The display includes the following models:

  • Higaki Kaisen – 1/72-scale Woody Joe kit of a coastal transport.
  • Hacchoro – 1/24-scale Woody Joe kit of a Yaizu bonito fishing boat.
  • Yakatabune – 1/24-scale Woody Joe kit of an Edo period pleasure boat.
  • Tosa Wasen – 1/10-scale Thermal Studio kit of a Tosa fishing boat.
  • Kamakura period Umibune – a 1/50 scale model of a trade boat, c. 1300AD
  • Hozugawa Ayubune – 1/10-scale model of a fishing boat from the Hozu river.
  • Urayasu Bekabune – 1/10-scale model of a Tōkyō Bay seaweed gathering boat.
  • Kobaya – 1/32-scale model of a boat belonging to the Shōgun’s government.

It is now set up and will be available for viewing through the morning of 2/28/19.

My Next Wasen Model Display, March 1st – 31st , 2018

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I may be no Yukio Nakayama, but I will have my own wasen model display coming up again in Japantown, San Francisco, in the display window of Union Bank’s community room inside the Japan Center’s East Mall.

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Wasen Display 6.0

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The sixth display of wasen models is now set up at the Japan Center Mall in the window of the Union Bank Community Room inside the East Mall building. The display will be up through the end of March and features the same models as before, but with the addition of my Kamakura Period Sea Boat or Umi-bune. Though the Umi-bune model is not quite complete, I figured it was far enough along for public display as an “in progress” model.

The display then consists of the Hacchoro, Higaki Kaisen, Yakatabune, Tosa wasen, and the Umi-bune. The main change in the display is the use of new folding pedestals I made. This makes transportation easier, as the new pedestals take much less room in my car.

My hope for future displays is to have a model of a Kitamaebune, which is very similar in appearance to the Higaki Kaisen, and to fix up my wasen boat shop diorama with the addition of a new partially planked boat under construction and a number of miniature tools and things.

I also hope to display the completed Umi-bune and finish up my Urayasu bekabune model and perhaps display it with the bekabune model that was given to me by the Urayasu Museum. Probably, the next display won’t be until sometime in the Fall.

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For those interested in building any of the kit models, they are all presently available. The Tosa Wasen kit is only available direct from the manufacturer. You can see their website at thermal-kobo.jp, but you will have to email them to place your order. The Hacchoro, Yakatabune and Higaki Kaisen kits are all available from the Japanese online seller Zootoyz.jp. Their prices are reasonable, service is very good, and you won’t get gouged on shipping fees. Again, instructions for all these kits are in Japanese, but all but the Higaki Kaisen are pretty straight forward.