Press Paws is a charity art show exhibit that took place at the Nucleus Gallery on February 9, 2013 with the goal of “saving animals with the power of art and video games!” Anyone who visited the event in person would be eligible to bid on and take home “animals in video games” themed art, with the proceeds going to the local animal rescue “Whats Up Dog! L.A.” Press Paws was founded by two former Square Enix employees, Amelia Cantlay and Sakura Minamida-Harris, now a Project Coordinator at LEVEL-5 and a Producer at Secret Powers respectively. Trevor and I had a chance to do a candid interview with the two co-founders who were happy to share their thoughts about the event.
How long did it take to plan PRESS PAWS?
Sakura: 6 months. We originally wanted to keep it pretty small and local but as we talked more, as we met with different people, it just became bigger and bigger and it is what it is now with everyone’s enthusiasm and support.
What influenced you to do this?
Sakura: We all have different reasons. For myself, I have a rescue and I felt at this part in my life I was able to help animals with the experiences I’ve had. I used to work at Square Enix in marketing and I wanted to use the knowledge and tools I had to help other animals. On top of that, we love art, we love video games, and it clicked.
Was it the same for you (Amelia)?
Amelia: Yeah, I worked with Sakura as well and we’re both in different places now but that’s how I met her and we have this experience in the video game industry, friends in the video game industry, and it came together naturally. Video games, art, animals, it’s just an amazing theme. I think for the artists too, they were excited about the theme and they were really inspired, and that fed off everyone’s excitement.
How did you go about contacting the artists?
Amelia: We started off, as Sakura was saying earlier, it was going to be a small, tight knit event with some artist friends but then [we] started reaching out to artists we were fans of and following to see what their reaction would be and thankfully it was amazing how everyone reacted really positively. So we kept contacting a lot of people.
Sakura: It started with my friend Scott from Meat Bun, the t-shirt company that made this (points to shirt). He was a big supporter for us and introduced to me to a lot of his artist friends like Paul Robertson. He introduced me to all of them and all of them really liked animals. So we went through friends and it all kind of came together. And when other artists’ saw these names pop up, they were like “this seems legit.”
What’s your opinion about video games and charity?
Sakura: I definitely think the gaming industry has some really amazing people in general. I grew up with people that love games. I was raised in Japan so video games are everything. It’s been a big influence on my life and people that play it are a big influence in my life. I just knew that the community was going to be there to support and I felt they were the right people to talk to, to connect with in charity.
Have you ever thought about doing anything like this before with video games, in other ways?
Sakura: This is definitely the first one but we definitely started hearing a lot of: “hey let’s work on this together, let’s work on that together.” So hopefully next time, if there is a next time, it will have a little more than just the art show.
Has there been any planning for the next one or seeing how this one turns out?
Amelia: That’s pretty much our plan. When you’re planning an event and you’re going through all this, you’re always talking about, “next time we should do it like that.” In that sense, we’ve been talking [about] future plans but we really need to sit down after this event and assess how everything went. If it was a success, in terms of charity and donating to Whats Up Dog!, see what we can do better, everyone’s reactions, and go from there.
Sakura: So far, its, looking good.
Amelia: (laughs) Everyone looks happy.
Sakura: Everyone looks like they’re into what’s going on and so, thank you everyone.
Amelia: Yes, thank you everyone.
How did you approach “What Up Dog! L.A?” How did you pitch this to them?
Sakura: It was really difficult because there were a lot of rescues and a lot of places we could have gone but we wanted to work with a rescue that understands what we’re doing. We want [them] to be excited about the art show, we wanted them to be excited the whole event. When we first started talking to them – they all came from the entertainment industry and one of the founders works for “The Cleveland Show,” and it clicked. We’re working really well together. It just kind of, fell into place. They were the first ones we contacted and it worked out.
Were they on board right away?
Sakura: They were. They were really excited about it, we brainstormed and everything. We knew immediately that this was the right group of people to work with.
Thank you for your time.
Photography by Trevor Stamp.
