Totoro Forest Project

Last night, I attended the Totoro Forest Project Art Auction held at Pixar in Emeryville. Pixar was kind enough to allow access to the upper hallway floors, which serve as an art gallery for previous Pixar films; they have storyboards, concept art, and reference from Finding Nemo, Ratatouille, and Wall-E posted on these walls, along with some sections of script from the drafts of Finding Nemo (the story reel for Finding Nemo was done 6 times!) For auction was nearly 200 art pieces from artists around the world. It was an awesome opportunity to walk away with art pieces from famous artists inspired by Hayao Miyazaki.

Stepping into the reception area, there's a note as well as a Totoro watercolor by Miyazaki thanking people for attending the event, followed by an open bar and several buffet areas. The center area was dominated by the art pieces for the show, which constantly had people browsing them, looking for that special piece to their collection.

The collection of art pieces will be seen at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco with the first display being shown September 20 - December 7th, and the second half being shown from November 6 to February 20th. There's a small overlap in time when both collections can be seen at the same time, and a reception to be held in December.

There will be some truly fabulous pieces up for display at the museum, and they're the sort of pieces that should be experienced in person; the reproductions in the book and the online gallery simply do not do it justice.

(I apologize for the lack of photos of this event -- no cameras were allowed into Pixar).