Finding My Tribe

Happy Thanksgiving! Among my many blessings, I am so grateful to be able to walk this creative path as a writer and artist. Last month I attended my first haiku conference, the three-day  Seabeck Haiku Gathering on beautiful Kitsap Peninsula in Washington State. Besides presentations and poetry readings, the retreat agenda included haiku Mad Libs, a haiku scavenger hunt, sumi ink painting and a very entertaining talent show that thoroughly dispelled any notion that all haiku poets are introverts.

It was deeply satisfying to find a place where others were grappling with the same obscure questions as I am: Does a haiku have to be literally true to be authentic? What is the role of the “leap” between the two fragmentary parts of a haiku? To punctuate or not to punctuate?

While I appreciate being part of a lively online community of haiku poets, there is no substitute for spending time in person with “the similarly afflicted,” as retreat organizer Michael Dylan Welch put it. In short, at Seabeck, I met the other members of my tribe.

loop trail
I follow in my own
footsteps

In confirmation that I’m on the right track, I recently got my first poems accepted by Frogpond and Modern Haiku, the two flagship journals of haiku in English.

I reached a less traditional artistic milestone recently. I learned that a woman who was given one of my prints is planning to have my playful dog painting tattooed on her hip. This unknown woman’s hip may not be the Sistine Chapel, but she is clearly making a commitment to my art!

So this Thanksgiving, I offer special thanks to the community of poets, artists, and others who have supported my work. Even if you have stopped short of tattooing my art on your body, your steady affirmation encourages and inspires me to carry on. Here’s wishing you a warm and wonderful holiday.

Free Shipping

I am offering free shipping through November on all domestic online orders from the Makino Studios Etsy shop. I’ve recently listed several new cards, prints, and handmade books of my haiku art. Just use shipping code THANKS2012 at checkout.

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Makino Studios News

Holiday Cards- The singing robin above is one of three new holiday card designs available starting next week.

Home for the Holidays- MikkiMoves Living Room Gallery. I will have several affordable pieces in this group show at 7th and I Streets in Eureka, California. Opening during Arts Alive, 6-9 p.m. Saturday, December 1. Runs through December.

Connecting: I regularly post fresh haiku and/or art on Facebook and Twitter. "Like" the Makino Studios Facebook page and/or follow @Ant99 on Twitter for the newest material.

Makino Studios at Humboldt Holiday Fairs

Humboldt Artisans Crafts and Music Festival – Friday, Nov. 30, 12 - 9 p.m.; Saturday, December 1, 10 a.m. – 7 p.m.; and Sunday, December 2, 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. Redwood Acres Fairgrounds, Eureka.

Arcata Holiday Crafts Market – Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 8-9, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. Arcata Community Center, Arcata.

Holiday Handmade/Makers Fair – Sunday, December 16, 10 a.m. - 4 p.m. Bayside Grange, 2297 Jacoby Creek Road, Bayside.

Pierson Christmas Fair – Tuesday, November 13-Tuesday, Dec. 25. Ongoing fair of arts and crafts handmade in Humboldt County. Pierson Garden Shop, 4100 Broadway Street, Eureka.

River Flow

“river flow” is 4″x6″, painted with sumi ink and Japanesr watercolors on paper. © Annette Makino

Every summer, my family spends a week or two at the riverside cabins of Sandy Bar Ranch on the Klamath River. We first stayed at this rural retreat near Orleans, California in 1997, when my daughter was a newborn. She laughed her first laugh, like the ringing of a thousand small bells, while looking up at trees swaying in the wind.

My son learned to walk at Sandy Bar, practicing in our cabin and at the beach. Once, with his sister holding his hands, they both toppled over at the river’s edge. They then sat in the sand, naked except for their hats, grinning.

Over the years we have filled our lazy days with swimming, hiking, picking berries, hunting for toads and watching shooting stars. But three summers ago, I added a new twist to this vacation routine: having just discovered haiku, I began illustrating my new poems with Japanese ink paintings.

Naturally, our riverside experiences found their way into my work.

ripe blackberry
the invitation
dangles

fire circle
sparks rise through darkness
to join the stars

This past summer has resulted in a harvest of twenty-one new artworks. Many of these pieces, combining haiku and other poem fragments with sumi ink paintings, emerged from my time on the river. These small-scale, intimate works are inspired by the Japanese tradition of etegami (see my previous post on this).

I will be exhibiting these paintings for the first time at the Makino Studios booth at the North Country Fair on the Arcata Plaza this weekend. I am also gradually posting them on my Makino Studios website in a new album called “Etegami Series.”

To get truly centered, sometimes you have to get wild: you need to seek out natural places in order to find yourself. When I’m at the river, the unstructured days and the beautiful, peaceful surroundings allow me to really open my eyes and heart and let creativity flow through me.

The poetry and art that springs from this time is very fulfilling, but the real value of my river time is experiencing what Wendell Berry called “the peace of wild things,” and coming back into my truth.

river flow
returning me
to myself

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The “river flow” piece above is 5" x 7", painted with sumi ink and Japanese gansai paints on textured card stock. It is now available at my  Makino Studios Etsy shop as a blank greeting card or 5x7 print. The red pepper painting below is also available as a card.

•Makino Studios News

North Country Fair: Makino Studios will have a booth at this festive two-day fair on the Arcata Plaza Saturday and Sunday, September 15-16, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. I'll have 21 new paintings and eight new card designs, plus prints, books and t-shirts. Look for me on G Street near the Hot Knots corner.

Haiku Retreat: Next month I will attend my first haiku conference and present on my haiga (haiku art) at the Seabeck Haiku Getaway. This is a four-day retreat for Haiku Northwest taking place October 11-14 on Washington State’s beautiful Kitsap Peninsula. If you’re in the region, come join the fun!

New Store: Focusing on environmentally responsible pet products, the newly opened Humboldt Pet Supply, at 145 G Street in Arcata, is now carrying my dog and cat cards. Soon I will also be showing my animal art on their walls. Here is my full list of retailers. You can also visit my studio by appointment.

Show at Morris Graves Museum: One of my "haiku for dog lovers" paintings is part of a group show on the human-animal relationship. Proceeds from the  "Palettes and Paws"  event benefit the Humboldt Arts Council and the Sequoia Humane Society. The Morris Graves Museum is located at 636 F Street, Eureka, California, and the show runs through September.

Connecting: I regularly post fresh haiku and art on Facebook and Twitter. "Like" the Makino Studios Facebook page for doses of humor and insight. You can also follow @Ant99 on Twitter for more news.

Looking Deeply

An art teacher I had in my early twenties, the abstract painter Leslie Kenneth Price, once pointed out to another student that she had carefully painted a face from her mirrored reflection, then assumed she knew what a neck looked like and simply painted two parallel lines. Under a fairly realistic face, the neck looked stiff and awkward. He told her, "Here’s where you stopped looking. Keep looking!" More than 25 years later, the words "keep looking" still echo in my head when I'm painting.

I love iris flowers and even had a poster of one in my college dorm room, yet I had never really looked at one closely. That changed this summer, when I decided to paint a wild iris from our yard. I was amazed at all the intricate overlapping petals, sepals and markings. The delicate complexity threatened to overwhelm me. But I told myself, "Keep looking!" And for the first time, I really saw the strange beauty of an iris, and managed to capture an approximation on paper.

This is perhaps the greatest gift of making art: it compels us to keep looking. To look deeply at our surroundings, or in the case of abstract art, to look deeply into our own visions. This is also the gift that comes from writing haiku: it reminds me to really see the ragged edge of a nettle leaf, the pattern of tea stains left in a cup, the strange beauty all around us. And the gift is magnified when I am able to share what I have found with others.

You don't need to be a painter or a poet to keep looking, just keep your eyes and heart open. Ultimately, to look deeply is to live more intensely.

new glasses
all the individual leaves
on the oaks

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The wild iris piece above is 5"x7", painted with sumi ink and Japanese gansai paints on textured card stock. The poem fragment on the piece was written for my husband Paul. This piece will be available as a blank greeting card or small print next month.

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Makino Studios News

Show at Morris Graves Museum:One of my "haiku for dog lovers" paintings will be part of a group show on the human-animal relationship. Proceeds from the "Palettes and Paws" event benefit the Humboldt Arts Council and the Sequoia Humane Society. The opening is during Arts Alive on Saturday, Sept. 1 from 6-9 p.m., and there will be an auction event on Saturday, Sept. 22. The Morris Graves Museum is located at 636 F Street, Eureka, California, and the show runs through September.

North Country Fair:Makino Studios will have a booth at this festive two-day fair on the Arcata Plaza, September 15-16. I'll have t-shirts and new paintings, cards and prints. Look for me on G Street near the Hot Knots corner.

Prune Juice:In July two of my haiga (haiku art) and four of my poems were published in Prune Juice, one of my favorite poetry journals. Prune Juice is focused on senryu, haiku's wry, funny cousin, and is a fun and entertaining read. (My pieces appear on pages 50-52.)

Buying in Person: Along with carrying my cards, as of today, Blake's Books in McKinleyville offers a good selection of my prints. A total of 17 Northern California stores currently carry my cards: see the list of retailers. You can also visit my studio by appointment. This past week I even had visitors from Mexico!

Buying Online:Happily, Etsy now accepts credit cards as well as PayPal, so it's even easier to order from my Makino Studios online shop. 

Connecting: I regularly post fresh haiku and/or art on Facebook and Twitter. "Like" the Makino Studios Facebook page for a dose of humor and insight. You can also follow @Ant99 on Twitter for more news.

Parallel Universes

When he was nine, my son Gabriel opened my eyes to the concept of parallel universes, the theory that there could be infinite co-existing universes. Both quantum physics and science fiction have explored this concept. But Gabriel quickly developed his own understanding. After watching a documentary on the subject, he told me mischievously, “I'm warning you, if there are other universes, in one you're wearing a pink fluorescent dress. And you're not regretting it!"

But one does not have to turn to quantum physics or fantasy to enter parallel universes: they exist right under our noses.  There is a microcosmic world in the patch of mold on a rotting stump. There is another universe in the hidden dramas of the raccoons that live in the woods around my home. While we move through our days, focused on our own stories, there are a million other stories unfolding all around us, if only we open our awareness. As a poet and artist, it is my privilege to bring glimpses of these other worlds to light—even if I don’t fully understand them myself. But as for that pink fluorescent dress: not in this lifetime!

June morning
the unknown calls
of unseen birds

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Makino Studios News

First Publication: Small squeal: today my first two haiku were published! They appear in the June issue of Notes from the Gean, a journal of Japanese form poetry (page 90).

New Retailers and Cards: As of last week, Blake’s Books in McKinleyville and Trinidad Trading Company in Trinidad are the latest Northern California stores to carry my haiku cards. (And they are selling so well that Blake's Books reordered two days later!) Also, I now offer two new card designs. See the Makino Studios Store page for designs, retailers, and links to the MakinoStudios online store on Etsy.

Group Show: This is the last week of the group show I’m part of at MikkiMoves Living Room Gallery. Corner of 7th and I Streets in Eureka, California. Shows runs through June.

North Country Fair: It's official: Makino Studios will have a booth at this festive two-day fair on the Arcata Plaza, September 15-16.

Connect: Did you know that I post fresh haiku and/or art on Facebook and Twitter most every day? “Like” the Makino Studios Facebook page for your daily dose of humor and insight. You can also follow @Ant99 on Twitter for more updates.