One of the first aritst peopz I met (online) was Marine Ramdhani, one cool dude alllllllll the way in Indonesia. At the time my collection was nearly zilch, I only had a few pieces at the time, and Marine was just steppin' into the scene, blastin' sketches of some of his Jouwe characters.
I thought his ant-rhino hybrid inspired sketches were a hella cool idea, and he was tryin' to get his sketches done into figures, and I told him that the day he turned his drawings into figures, I'd be there as a frontline fan of his work. He put it out there to see if there were any companies that would be willing to work with him in making his dream a reality. Being the kind of guy to help out, I hit the pavement and looked up a number of companies and forwarded them to him. He was hella stoked that I shared in his dream.
Well time had passed, and we kept in touch from time to time. But I remember it vividly, he emailed me to let me know that (as a secret not to get leaked out to the public) that he was producing a line of figures. I was hella stoked for him and his resin Jouwe Digi Wings and his Jouwe Tummy figures were born.
During the vinyl production of his Jouwe Tummy figure, I asked Marine if it would be cool to do a show here in Hawaii on his behalf. I got his blessings and went all out to launch of the "Feed My Tummy" show. It was a HUGE production, but man, it was worth all of the hard work. The show also helped put Hawaii on the grid in the urban vinyl/resin scene.
In all humility, I can't take even a pinch of the credit. I had John Hook, aka Contra808 take photos, Lofa helping blast the event online, team Prototype giving me the approval to host the event at their store, a number of heavy hitter urban sites like Toysrevil, SpankyStokes, Vinyl Pulse, Plastic and Plush, etc. supporting the cause. I got the huge honor of working with a number of Hawaii and wordly talented artists. Pancho, KatB, Arkiv, Leecifer, Scribe, Brent Nolasco, Squidnik, CKaweeks, JPK, Newkon, Lou Pimmentel and Phu volunteered their time and creativity to be a part of the event. And there's the Hawaii heads who came by and showed up to support the show.
Since the "Feed My Tummy" show in Hawaii, Marine has networked with his peopz and has help launch Jouwe Tummy shows in Los Angeles and Germany, unreal. Marine continues to hit the pavement and very recently he and a crew of unreal talent from Southeast Asia have been makin' on the urban grid, like Arkiv, Phu and The Yellow Dino.
Marine and I keep in touch from time to time, and it truly is a trip to see how far we've both come even though we're thousands miles away from each other. Propz....
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