When Shinobu Ichiyanagi begins making his magical creations, people tend to stop where they are. Children stare. Adults, too, for that matter.
In a matter of moments, what began as a glossy lump of sugar becomes a bird, a dragon, a horse, something whimsical and impossible. It is part sculpture, part performance, part sleight of hand.
And on Friday, May 1, from 6:30 to 9 p.m., Daikin Festival guests will see it for themselves when “Shan the Candyman” appears at Point Mallard Park.
One of only a dozen master practitioners of amezaiku — the Japanese art of candy sculpting — Shan has performed at parties hosted by celebrities including Charlton Heston, Paris Hilton, and Kim Kardashian, among others.
He brings something unmistakably Japanese, deeply traditional, and yet immediately accessible. You do not need to know a thing about the art to be drawn in. You just have to watch his hands.
In an interview with DaikinAlabama.com, Shan said he first encountered candy art as a child in Japan, age five or six, but never imagined it would become his life’s work. That came later, after he moved to the United States at eighteen and enrolled in adult school, where he apprenticed with a master amezaiku artist who was also a classmate — and, it turned out, a fellow martial artist making a new home in America.
The martial arts connection was not incidental. Shan holds black belts in several styles, and he credits that training with shaping the way he works.
Rather than treating sculpting as a matter of hand coordination, he describes it as a whole-body discipline — posture, breath, balance, and flow. He works from a low, stable stance, front leg and back leg set, center of gravity dropped. What the audience sees as effortless showmanship is, in fact, a highly trained physical routine.
“I synchronize with the candy,” he says. In his account, figures like unicorns and dragons emerge with minimal conscious force, as though he “becomes” the subject he is crafting.
That may sound abstract until you remember the medium. Sugar does not stay soft for long. It cools. It resists. It punishes hesitation. Which may be why his work never seems merely decorative.
There is another influence on his eye. Shan is also a Graduate Gemologist and has worked as a jewelry designer, and that training shows in the finished pieces: the color, the clarity, the way the light catches the material. His candy animals often look less like confections than tiny living ornaments.
Over the years, that sensibility has taken him far beyond street-fair entertainment. Based in Los Angeles, Shan has spent more than three decades performing at private events, corporate functions, and cultural festivals in the United States and abroad.
One commission stands out above the rest: a large-scale piece for Adobe Inc., created for a landmark design competition celebrating digital mastery.
Shan was asked to recreate the contest’s winning bird design in candy — five feet long, more than three feet tall, at a scale he had never attempted. He remembers it as one of the hardest pieces he has ever made.
“It became a highlight of the celebration,” he says, “and a personal milestone I still recall with quiet pride.”
That combination of difficulty and delight is central to his appeal.
So, when festivalgoers encounter Shan the Candyman on May 1, they will not simply be watching someone make candy. They will be experiencing a Japanese art form at its highest level, performed by a man who has spent decades deepening it.
Amid the music, food, and celebration at Point Mallard Park, his work may prove one of the evening’s purest pleasures.
Join us, Friday, May 1, from 6:30 until 9pm for Daikin Festival 2026.