Michael Reminisces

HEADING TO TŌHOKU:
AN ANNUAL TREK TO MEET JAPANESE CUSTOMIZERS

Purchase Info

Michael has signed, numbered and collectable “Limited Edition” prints for sale. Check out the “Limited Edition” section of the website to find the print you’ve always wanted to hang in your home!

There are also a number of very affordable “Work Prints” for sale. Contact Michael to find out how to purchase.

And if you’re interested in exhibiting Michael’s work, please contact him to find out how.

Featured Bike

Pepe Lazzara’s Vicla Custom

Pepe Lazzara’s brought his Vicla style custom known as Trinela, a custom Harley-Davidson Shovelhead hand-built buy Pepe in Sicily, Italy, to Sturgis for just one week to highlight it at the different shows. The details on this piece of rolling art just don’t end. His energy and enthusiasm, along with that of his good friend Stéphan Grand from Geneva were boundless. I had the good fortune to photograph the bike both in the studio and on location at Sturgis, so I’m sure this will be seen in magazines around the world.

Featured Shop

Takatoshi Suzuki’s Seven Motorcycle Shop

Seven is an auspicious number for Takatoshi Suzuki. After marrying his wife, Nanae, whose name translates as “Seven”, it became the name of his shop. Takatoshi received my award in 2018 for his skinny blue-flamed Shovelhead, which not only came to the USA to be exhibited in my “What’s the Skinny” exhibition at the Buffalo Chip the following year, but it is also one of my all-time favorites. This year, he unveiled a beautiful black-flamed Shovelhead in his “Seven-Style”, and so we trekked up to Sendai in the Miyagi Prefecture with Kaz to photograph the bike, the shop, and Takatoshi and Nana. Visit his shop here, and don’t forget to visit our new shops section here.

Michael Lichter 2026 Full Throttle Exhibition in Sturgis

RISING SUN, Custom Motorcycles from Japanese Craftsmen / the Art of Kodawari* will be this year’s exhibition at the Full Throttle Saloon, presented by Michael Lichter with Masaya Kosaka 8/7–16/2026. 

Japan has fascinated me since long before I understood why. I have made nine trips there, nearly all as a guest of Mooneyes to photograph their legendary Yokohama Hot Rod Custom Show — and each time I stayed on to visit builders in their workshops. Those visits are the foundation of this exhibition.

Rising Sun brings together eighteen custom motorcycles built by Japanese craftsmen, most of whom are still working in their homeland. Alongside the bikes, you will find thirty of my photographs from Japan and more than thirty large-format paintings by featured artist Makoto Endo, created with bamboo chopsticks and India ink. Makoto will be painting live in the gallery nearly every day of the exhibition.

The concept binding it all together is kodawari* — the Japanese devotion to craft that drives a builder to spend a week on a detail no one may ever notice. You will find it in every machine, every painting, and every photograph in this room. Look closely. It is there.

Participating Builders include Aki Sakamoto, Dais Nagao, Kaichiroh Kurosu, Kiyonaga Mitsuhiro, Makoto Kaji, Masaya Kosaka, Masayuki Sugihara, Ryo Yamada, Shinji Matsumoto, Shinji Okuaki, Shinya Kimura, Takatoshi Suzuki, Takuya Okubo, Tetsuya Isozaki, Tomoyoshi Uchida, Toshiyuki Ozawa, Yoji Kikuhara, Yusaku Kori

* Kodawari (ko·da·wa·ri) is a Japanese concept with no direct English equivalent. It describes an uncompromising devotion to craft — a refusal to settle, a relentless pursuit of perfection in even the smallest detail. It is the silent conversation a maker has with their work when no one is watching. Not perfectionism for its own sake, but an obsession born of love — for the material, the process, and the thing being made. In Japan, kodawari is not a personality trait. It is a way of life.