summer bloom: toyko lily

here’s our hope for a most joyous upcoming summer to you, dear heARTists and heART lovers!

it’s the 8th day of the 6th month, and time to catch up with our favorite heARTist, Yuriko.

if you’ve been following this blog, then you know that we’ve been in the process of making a film about her called ‘Tokyo Lily, a War Bride docu*memory'.

here’s the trailer we created with some images that will be featured in the film:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qW3S8xr-eQ

and, yes, we’re still fundraising. 

https://crowdfundr.com/tokyo-lily

although our dedicated donors have been so instrumental in getting our super 8mm and miniDV tapes digitized for editing, we could always use more donations. 

besides paying for music licensing, we also hope to hire an animator for scenes that lack images.

fortunately, we do have the assistance of a researcher who's locating WWII Japan footage and stills. not only is she incredibly knowledgeable, but she's made her own unique story known in the book she's published:

https://www.amazon.in/Becoming-Misako-Kikuchi-Lynn-Hammonds/dp/1537745956/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_pl_foot_top?ie=UTF8

Lynn Hammonds was also instrumental in the production of our 5 films that collectively became ‘War Brides of Japan, a docu*memory’. 

those films are still available on Gumroad:

https://watermelonsushi.gumroad.com/

War Brides of Japan, a docu*memory

please subscribe to our YouTube channel below:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCPemluw0stoTsx8yvz2tCrg

you can also check us out at our websites:

https://hapateez.wixsite.com/tokyo-lily

https://warbridesofjapan.com/

and, at our Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/WarBridesOfJapan/

arrigatou to our supporters for all your encouragement!

until we meet on September 8, please enjoy your summer!

Yuri’s Fans Forever

lily of tokyo

Tokyo Lily

happy holidays to all you heARTists and heART lovers all around the world! it’s the 8th day of the 12th month, and time to celebrate more heARTwork by Yuri.

everyone, we have more great news for you! 

in October, we released the first trailer for our upcoming film, ‘Tokyo Lily, a war bride docu*memory’—which is about Yuriko’s life and heART.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qW3S8xr-eQ

and, last month, we started a fundraising campaign to help us complete the film:

https://crowdfundr.com/tokyo-lily

with the money you donate, we’ll be processing film footage for editing. we’ll also hire an illustrator/animator to help fill in the spaces of missing WWII Japan images. and, we’ll employ a historian/researcher so we can accurately portray that time period. we’ll need to license music, too. one song we have our heARTs set on costs a whopping $10,000.

oil painting

we’ve already been hard at work cataloging Yuri’s heARTwork including her oil paintings on canvas—on wood, on silk cloth, and even clamshells; her wood carvings, her cut and folded paper creations and, of course, all her sewing projects including crocheted high heel shoes, quilts, and knitted dolls. 

oil on clam shells

wood carved parrot

paper kasa (umbrellas)

crocheted high heels

quilts

knitted dolls

we hope to have that portion of the film done by the end of this year. and, even though that’s just weeks away, it will be the easier part.

 Yuriko means Lily in Japanese

here’s where some of Yuri’s paintings can be seen now:

https://lenastarwheels.wixsite.com/iamartistyuriko

meanwhile, we’ll be processing mini DVD and super 8mm footage of Yuri throughout the years. some of it dates back to the late 1960’s. far out! groovy!

please join us via your contributions. we would really appreciate your help, and we do list each and every name publicly (unless you prefer that we don’t).

besides social media, we’ll also post your name on our Tokyo Lily website:

https://hapateez.wixsite.com/tokyo-lily

if you’d like to know more about our past war bride film projects, check us out at:

https://watermelonsushi.gumroad.com/

https://www.youtube.com/@warbridesofjapan/videos 

https://www.youtube.com/c/WatermelonSushi/videos 

www.warbridesofjapan.com

here’s to a wonderful holiday season to you and yours! arrigatou.

Yuri's Fans Forever

summer heARTS with Yuri

a tender song

happy summer days, heARTists and heART lovers everywhere!

it’s the 8th day of the 6th month and time for more heARTwork by Yuri.

nothing says summer like birds, cats and flowers. so for this blog, we would like to share some of Yuri’s pantings featuring—what else, but birds, cats and flowers.

you can almost smell the sweetness of the flowers she painted, and you can almost hear the tender songs of the birds, can’t you? well, except for those noisy crows.

the cawing of crows

as for the cats, watch out! they may look cute and cuddly, but cats are awfully playful at times. look out for the little beasts' claws. me-ouch!

even though we have a few more days before summer is official, here’s hoping that you’re enjoying the blue skies no matter where you are in this world—unless, of course, you're experiencing winter where you live. in that case, we offer our condolences.

for more heARTwork by Yuri, please visit her website at:

iAmArtistYuriko.com

meanwhile our ‘War Brides of Japan, a docu*memory’ series continues to win film festival awards. this is a 5-part documentary about Japanese war brides like Yuriko. for a time, the films were available on Vimeo, but we are now searching for another platform.

please check out our website for the latest: www.warbridesofjapan.com

until we meet again, happy summer and i will always be with you as one of…

Yuri’s Fans Forever