A calendar tradition

This image, “Redwood Duff,” by Annette Makino is a collage made from washi papers from Asia, old letters, book pages, music scores and gel prints of redwood tips, plus acrylic paint and glue on cradled wood.

Annette Makino first started making calendars as a teenager with her family; now she’s making calendars of her art and haiku that are sold the world over

HEATHER SHELTON, EUREKA TIMES-STANDARD, EUREKA, CA, SEPT. 29, 2024

Award-winning Arcata artist/poet Annette Makino has created mini-calendars of her art and haiku for 12 consecutive years. Her 2025 calendar is now available.

“Producing a calendar of my art is a deeply satisfying way to collect the best of the year’s work in one package that is then shared with the community,” Makino said. “When I turn to a new page, at the beginning of every month, I love knowing that hundreds of other people around the country and even overseas are doing the same that day.”

The 2025 calendar focuses on the landscapes, flora and fauna of Humboldt County, she said.

“Local folks will recognize our redwoods, oceans, dunes and barns, as well as an egret, field mouse, frog and migrating geese. A dog and a cat also make an appearance. Even a non-native creature, a sea turtle, is paired with a haiku I wrote here one frosty winter.”

Beginnings

Makino grew up with a Japanese father and a Swiss mother and lived in both Japan and Switzerland for short periods of time during her youth, though she was raised primarily in California.

Wherever she was, creativity was a cornerstone of her childhood, with she and her sisters Yuri and Yoshi regularly involved in projects like sewing quilts, making clay sculptures, tie-dying T-shirts, making batik wall hangings and more.

In 1976 when Makino was 13, her mom suggested her daughters work together to create a calendar adorned with their artwork.

“My mother, two younger sisters and I were living in Basel, Switzerland with my elderly grandmother that year,” Makino recalled. “One fall afternoon, my mom brought home a calendar for the following year with a blank space for each month’s image. She asked us three girls to create the art. We set to work with our colored markers on the floor of our shared bedroom. I remember drawing a scene of the birch woods near my grandmother’s house, fiery in yellow and orange leaves.

“The following January, we moved to a large commune/group house in a village an hour from Zurich, Switzerland,” she said. “My mom hung this first calendar in the main room of our private living area there.”

“The Poet’s Supper,” part of the 1985 Makino family calendar, is made with pen-and-ink plus colored pencil. © Annette Makino 1984

A year later, after they moved back to the United States, Makino and her sisters decided to create another calendar from scratch. They photocopied their work and gave the calendars to loved ones for the holidays, she said.

“The family and friends who received our calendars were so appreciative, it just became a tradition,” Makino said. “It was a rewarding way to showcase our work over the previous year and a fun group project for us three sisters.”

The trio continued the calendar-making tradition through their teens and college years.

“Now each calendar is a time capsule of our interests and abilities that year, as well as the trends of the times,” Makino said.

For instance, she says that in the 1970s, the sisters drew unicorns, butterflies, mimes and the like. The early ’80s, “gave way to punk/New Wave-inspired designs and absurdist pen and ink sketches,” she said.

“When we were in late high school and college, the calendars included portraits of boyfriends and, in the case of my sister, Yoshi, detailed assignments from art school,” Makino said. “Besides pen and ink drawings, we featured scratchboard art, black and white photos and linoleum block prints — anything that would Xerox well.”

As the sisters got busy in adulthood, it became harder for them to come up with four artworks each for the calendar, Makino said, and the three stopped producing their popular creations in 1987. Still, they each kept up with some form of art.

“We are a creative family,” Makino said. “My mother, Erika, took up sculpture in her 80s and produced clay or cement sculptures into her 90s, though at 96, she is mostly done with that. … My sister Yoshi teaches high school and middle school art. She also carves beautiful elemental designs into earth plaster and does all sorts of other creative projects. My sister Yuri is an independent filmmaker and film professor at the University of Arizona.”

Makino Studios

Artist/haiku poet Annette Makino is pictured in her studio. Makino has just released her 2025 mini-calendar, which features a colorful collection of her work. (Photo by Maya Makino)

Makino — who holds a degree in international relations from Stanford University and has years of experience as a communications specialist for nonprofit organizations — moved to Arcata in 1986 and opened Makino Studios — where she creates Japanese-inspired paintings and collages often combined with or inspired by her original haiku — in 2011. Her paintings are made using sumi ink and Japanese watercolors and her collages combine hand-painted and torn washi papers from Asia with found papers such as old maps and letters.

“I’ve always considered myself both a visual artist and a writer, and I’m fascinated by the interplay between words and images,” Makino said. “So, when I learned about the Japanese tradition of haiga, in which ink paintings are combined with haiku, I felt compelled to try it myself. In an effective haiga, the image and the poem move beyond illustration or description to enhance and deepen the whole. I find it a very rich and interesting art form.”

In addition to her original works, Makino sells greeting cards and prints, and also published an award-winning book of her haiku and haiga, “Water and Stone: Ten Years of Art and Haiku,” in 2021.

“I have a line of about 70 greeting cards,” Makino said. “Through trial and error, I’ve found that cards with haiku generally don’t sell that well. So for cards, I’ll use the same art but add different words that are more suited for sending for occasions like birthdays, holidays or condolences.”

And yes, she sells calendars, too.

In 2013, many years after those initial calendar-making projects with her sisters, Makino created the first calendar of her art and haiku.

“To my surprise, the 400 calendars I printed that year sold out,” said Makino, who notes she wasn’t “consciously thinking of our family calendar” when she decided to produce her first Makino Studios calendar.

“I just thought it would be a good experiment to see if people responded to a collection of my pieces in that form,” she said. “I only realized later that it was a sort of return to our family calendar tradition. And although my sisters don’t contribute art to this series, they provide really helpful feedback on the draft pieces, as does my artist daughter, Maya.”

And Makino says that while her artistic technique has improved since she was 13, “I still get just as much pleasure from creating a usable collection of art and sharing it with the world. In fact, I consider the Makino Studios mini-calendar to be a tiny rotating art gallery.”

This is the 12th annual calendar of art and haiku by Annette Makino.

She added, “At just $12 — the same price since 2014 — I think the calendar makes a nice holiday gift that brings a bit of joy and color to a small space, and maybe provides some food for thought. It has even inspired some recipients to start writing haiku.”

Makino’s work is sold mainly through local stores such as the Arcata and Eureka Co-ops and Eureka Natural Foods, and is also available through her website, https://www.makinostudios.com. She will have a Makino Studios booth at the “Holiday Craft Market” at the Arcata Community Center on Dec. 14 and 15 as well.

Rattle Poetry: Poets Respond, Rattlecast 254

RATTLE POETRY, POETS RESPOND, JULY 21, 2024

Annette Makino

HAIKU

dry thunder
the latest polls
roll in

—from Poets Respond

__________

Annette Makino: “I’m spending the week at a cabin on the Klamath River in Northern California, where a summer storm surprised us on Monday. It’s beautiful here, but dry thunder—and dry lightning—are very ominous in this rugged, mountainous region prone to wildfires. The weather seemed to echo my sense of dread from the political news.”

•

RATTLE POETRY, RATTLECAST 254, JULY 21, 2024

Annette Makino briefly speaks about her “dry thunder” haiku with Rattle editor Timothy Green, starting at the 2:00 mark in Rattle’s weekly podcast. This issue also includes a tribute to beloved haiku poet Deborah P. Kolodji, who passed away earlier this day, and an interview with poet Chera Hammons. Watch the Rattlecast.

Q&A: A Closer Look with Annette Makino

Artist and haiku poet Annette Makino works on a collage.

STICKS & STONES (Erica Goss's monthly newsletter dedicated to poetry, reading and literature)

ISSUE 91, JULY 1, 2024

(Read on Erica Goss’ website; scroll down to Q&A)

A Closer Look with Annette Makino

Our mothers became friends when we were toddlers, so I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know Annette Makino. Annette has lived in Japan and Europe, traveled widely in her career as a journalist, and runs Makino Studios from her home in Northern California.

EG:  How did you get started with haiku?

AM: I first learned about and wrote haiku in sixth grade as part of a lesson on syllables. Like so many of us, I was mis-taught that haiku in English have to follow a three-line, 5-7-5 syllable count. Turns out this rule is something of an urban myth, based on a misunderstanding of how Japanese sound-syllables carry over to English syllables. Literary haiku that are published in the leading haiku journals in English are almost always shorter than 5-7-5. Also, nowadays the classic three-line format has broadened to include one-line haiku and other variations. 

Anyhow, after that awkward sixth grade introduction, I set haiku aside for almost four decades. But in 2010 an artist friend gave me a lovely book of poems by her Japanese grandmother that were illustrated by my friend. These were senryu, a more humorous or wry cousin of haiku that focuses on the foibles of human nature. I was inspired to start writing my own senryu and then moved on to haiku, sort of entering by the back door. I also began creating haiga, a Japanese tradition of art combined with haiku.

EG: Haiga is art plus haiku. Is this form more accessible to the public? In what ways?

AM: I must confess that even as a poet myself, I find much of contemporary poetry to be inaccessible—or just too much work to figure out! Haiku, sometimes called "one-breath poems,” tend to be more digestible. When you add in a visual component, as in a haiga, the piece becomes even easier to approach, even for those who never read poetry. While not everyone enjoys chewing on poetry, we all naturally respond to images.

Besides publishing a book of my watercolor haiga, I publish an annual mini-calendar featuring my haiga. Most of my customers aren’t haiku poets or haiga connoisseurs; they just like the words and images. So you might say the calendar is a stealthy way of spreading poetry among people who might not otherwise seek it out.

EG: What comes first, haiku or art?

AM: I usually write the haiku first, then create the art—for some reason that's easier for me. But there are times when I just have the urge to create a collage of say, jellyfish, and then I have to come up with the haiku after the fact. That is tricker. 

A challenge is that in the best haiga, the image is not simply an illustration of the words and the words are not just a description of the image. Rather, there should be a bit of a gap between word and image just as there should be a gap between the two parts of a haiku, deepening the piece and allowing the viewer or reader room to provide their own interpretation. Getting that distance just right is my eternal quest. You can see some examples of haiga on my website gallery. 

EG: How do you balance running a small business with your artistic work?

AM: Small business owners know you could work 24/7 just on the business side of things: marketing, accounting, filling orders. So it can be hard to prioritize the time to make art and write. It’s always less urgent, even though that’s the core of my Makino Studios art business. 

On the plus side, I get so much positive feedback from my customers, whether online, in stores or at art fairs. They tell me how my cards, especially, help them connect with the people they love. For instance, at a holiday fair, an older woman told me that one of my cards was the perfect message to make up with her sister after they’d had a fight. Another time, a burly guy in a skydiving sweatshirt shared that whenever he goes out of town, he leaves a different card for his wife to open every day; he especially loves giving her my cards. My book inspired a 90-year old man to start writing and sharing haiku with his daughter two states away, and then to take a haiku class. And at a recent dental visit, I spotted my book in the exam room, right next to a teeth model. Turns out a customer had given it to his hygienist who thought patients might find it calming. Knowing my work has a concrete impact on people means the world to me and motivates me to keep creating and putting the work out there. 

Also, I hate this fact, but I sometimes need external pressure, like a calendar printing deadline, to buckle down and start producing. So in that sense, running Makino Studios gives me an incentive to make art and write even when I don’t feel particularly inspired. 

EG: Can you share any advice you have for someone just starting out as an artist or writer?

AM: Expose yourself to a variety of artists and poets, and of genres. Notice what moves you. Go deeper in that direction.

Create regularly—a bad draft can always be improved later, and it's a lot better than starting with a blank page. I made myself a rule that I have to write a haiku before checking social media. Though I often fall off the wagon, I now write more poems and spend less time scrolling Instagram or Facebook. 

Read, take classes, join groups, whatever works best for you to deepen your practice. But whatever you learn, keep trusting your own voice, your own creative urge. You have something unique to contribute to the world.

Finally, few of us are likely to get rich on our poetry and art, so have fun! 

let us live
on poetry and honey
so rich on the tongue

Annette Makino’s work is regularly published in the leading journals of haiku and haiga in English and in many anthologies. Her haiku have garnered international honors, including the Touchstone Award, the Henderson Haiku Award, the Brady Senryu Award and the Porad Haiku Award. Her book, Water and Stone: Ten Years of Art and Haiku, won Honorable Mention in the Haiku Society of America’s Merit Book Awards. Raised by a Japanese father and a Swiss mother, Annette has lived in Japan and Europe. Visit her website for a gallery of her art as well as greeting cards, prints, and a blog about her creative process.

Read Annette’s article in the December 12, 2023 issue of the Haiku Society of America.

Art Beat: Annette Makino’s Life in Collage

Annette Makino. Photo by Maya Makino

LOUISA ROGERS, NORTH COAST JOURNAL, EUREKA, CA, DECEMBER 21, 2023

Annette Makino has been an artist all her life but it wasn't until 2010 that she became interested in incorporating haiku into her artwork. For her birthday that year, her Arcata friend and fellow artist Amy Uyeki gave her a book of senryu, a poetic form structurally similar to haiku but with more humor and a focus on human nature. The poems were written by Uyeki’s Japanese grandmother and accompanied by Uyeki’s art.

“This lovely book set me on my current path,” says Makino, whose father is also Japanese. She started combining her haiku with simple brush paintings, which evolved to Asian-inspired watercolors and then collages. A year later, after leaving her 20-year career as senior vice president for communications at the Arcata-based nonprofit Internews, she launched Makino Studios, offering collages, watercolors, prints, cards and calendars.

Annette Makino’s “All that I am” incorporates book pages, a fern print, a vintage Japanese letter and washi paper, as well as asemic, or made-up, writing by her nephew.

Currently she works mostly with collage using hand-painted and torn Japanese washi papers, which are typically made from the fibers of the mulberry plant. She also uses other papers from different parts of her life—letters, her young nephew’s scribbles, book pages, musical scores and maps. To make sure the pieces don’t fade over time, she uses acrylic paints to color the white paper, then tears it into the shapes she wants and glues it onto paper or wood, a process that typically takes two to three days. According to Makino, a common misconception is that collage doesn't require much skill. “It’s very labor intensive and can involve as much skill as painting,” she says.

Makino’s most productive periods of artwork happen twice every summer, when she and her husband, Paul, a retired Cal Poly Humboldt geography professor, rent a cabin on the Klamath River in Orleans, a place they've visited for 27 years. In that placid location, free from distractions, she can get a lot of work done.

Makino usually writes the haiku first, before the artwork. “The words aren’t meant to illustrate the art,” she says. “You want a bit of distance, so the reader has a new way to think about the theme.” She often starts crafting the poem while hiking in Ma-le'l Dunes or in Trinidad, where she and Paul walk a couple of times a week.

Makino considers herself equal parts artist and writer. Her book Water and Stone: Ten Years of Art and Haiku was awarded Honorable Mention in the Haiku Society of America's Merit Book Awards and her poetry regularly appears in English-language haiku journals, including Modern Haiku, Frogpond and The Heron’s Nest. She has also won awards for her poetry from the Haiku Foundation and the Haiku Society of America.

Many of Makino’s haiku have to do with transitions. A few years ago, for example, when her two young adult children started the process of leaving home, she wrote about the empty nest, while the loss of her 16-year-old dog inspired many poems last summer. Her 95-year-old mother Erika, a former Humboldt resident and also a writer and artist, lives three hours away in Mendocino County. Makino visits her about once a month and is keenly aware of her mom’s gradual decline. That, and the earthquake last winter which caused a lot of damage to her home, have inspired her poetry and art. “Whatever life brings me,” she says. 

Makino’s “Garden rosebush,” a collage of book pages, a letter and envelope from the artist’s grandmother, handmade and Japanese washi papers, painted, torn and glued onto birch wood panel.

Makino was one of five local artists granted the 2022 Victor Thomas Jacoby award for “artistic vision and creativity,” provided annually by the Humboldt Area Foundation and Wild Rivers Community Foundation. Winners each received $10,000 to support their work. The award freed her from some of the commercial pressures of running a business and creating mostly marketable art that appeals to the public. Instead, she experimented with mixed media, using materials like charcoal, crayon, ink and pencil in her collages, and exploring oils and cold wax.

Recently, she’s been incorporating more personally meaningful elements into her collages. Because Paul loves maps, she created a collage for him that included a detailed map of Tibet. Another collage she created with whales incorporated a scrap from her daughter’s high school copy of Moby Dick. For “Garden rosebush,” she says, “I included a letter from my Swiss grandmother when I got married.”

Makino’s Japanese-Swiss ancestry has shaped her creativity. The haiku and Japanese paper may be more apparent to viewers but, “The Swiss, too, are surprisingly very playful in their art and writing,” she says, noting she likes to bring that spirit of play into her work.

Makino’s cards, prints and calendars are available at the Made in Humboldt Fair at Pierson Garden Shop through Dec. 24, and in shops around the county year-round. You can see more of her work at makinostudios.com.

Louisa Rogers (she/her) is a writer, painter and paddleboarder who lives in Eureka and Guanajuato, Mexico.

Read on the North Coast Journal site

Pleasures and pitfalls in creating haiga

This haiga by Annette Makino was published in Contemporary Haibun Online in December 2023, and appears in her 2024 calendar of art and haiku. © Annette Makino 2023

ANNETTE MAKINO, HAIKU SOCIETY OF AMERICA NEWSLETTER, DECEMBER 5, 2023

You probably know the satisfaction of writing a well-crafted haiku, when just the right words in the right order create something greater than the sum of its parts. Now imagine that feeling magnified by adding a visual dimension, opening up an extra avenue of creative expression. That is the reward of creating haiga.

You will also find that haiga are more accessible to your cousins, colleagues or others who aren’t particularly interested in haiku. An arresting image combined with a few well-chosen lines of haiku is easy to digest without any knowledge of Japanese poetry. For many years I have published a calendar of my haiga. Sold mainly in grocery stores, bookstores and plant nurseries in my community, these reach hundreds of people each year who have no special connection to haiku, but who find beauty and meaning in the haiga.

“But wait,” I hear you objecting, “I don’t have an artistic bone in my body!” Fear not. In the Japanese tradition, haiga did not require any particular artistic skill. Though there were certainly practitioners who were great artists, like Buson, most haiga images were very modest. The creator’s sincerity and individual expression were key.

Also, with today’s availability of digital photography and photo editing apps, creating variations of haiga is more accessible than ever. (But note the hazards of photo-haiga, below.)

As haiku poets, we have learned that, typically, a key element of an effective haiku is to “mind the gap”—to create some distance between the one-line fragment and the two-line phrase of each poem, enabling readers to make connections themselves. (Of course, some powerful poems break this general guideline.)

The same holds true in the juxtaposition of the image and words in a haiga. Stephen Addiss has written, “In a fine haiga, the poem does not just explain the painting, nor does the painting merely illustrate the poem. Instead, they add layers of meaning to each other.”

However, in my experience, this is easier said than done. If the haiku doesn’t include a strong visual element, it is fairly simple to create some disjunction between the art and text. But if your haiku contains a visual image, as many effective poems do, and if you are using a representational artistic style, it can be hard to find the right distance between the poem and the art. On the one hand, you don’t want to make the connection too obvious; on the other, you don’t want to confound or disengage the viewer.

For instance, in a haiku about a fledgling learning to fly, pictures of birds immediately come to mind. But some other potential visual subjects that offer related but less overt connections might include feathers, fields or clouds. Even paper airplanes!

Correspondingly, if your artistic style is more abstract, it’s easier to create contrast between the text and art even if the haiku features a visual image. For instance, traditional Japanese haiga made of a few semi-abstract brushstrokes allow plenty of space for the viewer to fill in.

I find that many haiga using photos (known as shahai in Japanese) leave me cold; a photo can contain so much visual information that it closes down interpretations of the piece as a whole. But photo-based haiga can be successful if they use more impressionistic images like simple landscapes or extreme closeups. Photos that are manipulated with filters to become somewhat abstracted can also be very effective. And a more detailed photo can still work if the poem shifts away from it enough.

There is a lot involved in crafting haiga; I’ve only touched the surface here. But in the end, I encourage you to create what you want to create. Guidelines can be helpful, but don’t let them limit you. It’s all about the joy of expressing yourself!

•

See the gallery of Annette’s haiga.

See her 2024 haiga calendar.

See an essay on linking in haiga by Michael Dylan Welch.

Haiku Poets of Northern California - Featured Reader: Annette Makino

HAIKU POETS OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA, QUARTERLY MEETING, OCTOBER 15, 2023

On October 15, 2023, Annette Makino was one of two featured readers for the fall quarterly meeting of the Haiku Poets of Northern California held on Zoom.

Watch the 15-minute presentation on YouTube, where she shows more than 50 of her Japanese-inspired watercolor and collage haiga (art combined with haiku) and explains a bit about her process. Introduction by HPNC President Garry Gay.

A New Resonance 13: Emerging Voices in English-Language Haiku

RED MOON PRESS, WINCHESTER, VA, FEBRUARY 15, 2023

The New Resonance community welcomes its latest group of inductees - Mimi Ahern, Tom Bierovic, Rod Boyer, Anne Elise Burgevin, Jennifer Hambrick, Frank Hooven, Julie Bloss Kelsey, Jim Laurila, Kat Lehmann, Cyndi Lloyd, Annette Makino, Lorraine A Padden, Marianne Paul, Pippa Phillips, John Rowlands, Agnes Eva Savich, and Robert Witmer - bringing the group to more than 220 members. The purpose of the New Resonance series is to showcase emerging talent in the field of English-language haiku, and to provide space where their individual voices might be recognized. The series, which began in 1999, is edited by Jim Kacian and Julie Schwerin.

These poets continue to appear in the major haiku journals and elsewhere, and their books have been accorded the honor of serious and adulatory review and critique. Many are recognized among the leaders of literary haiku in their respective countries and around the world. These seventeen new members to this rather exclusive confederacy, then, have a very high standard against which to measure themselves, but equally high expectations of their ultimate position in the haiku community. This is the thirteenth volume in a much-awarded series.

ISBN: 978-1-958408-18-6
Pages: 176
Size: 5.5″ x 8.25″
Binding: perfect softbound

Order a copy of A New Resonance 13.

Humboldt artists receive honors

PAINTING & POEM Annette Makino, one of the winners of the Victor Jacoby Award, combines paintings and haiku.

MAD RIVER UNION, HUMBOLDT, CA, DECEMBER 29, 2022

Humboldt Area Foundation and Wild Rivers Community Foundation is proud to announce that five Humboldt County artists are winners of the 2022 Victor Thomas Jacoby award for artistic vision and creativity. Winners receive $10,000 each to support their work.

Each fall, local artists apply through HAF+WRCF for the Victor Thomas Jacoby Award by submitting examples of their work and vision for innovating and pushing their art to the next level.

“Victor was a gifted artist who wanted to recognize the excellence of fellow artists and enable them to broaden their horizons,” said Craig Woods, director of grantmaking. “HAF+WRCF is honored to carry out Victor’s charitable vision by supporting Humboldt County visual artists and craftspeople each year.”

This year’s recipients are:

• Annette Makino – An award-winning haiku poet and artist based in Arcata who combines paintings and collages with her poems. Her work regularly appears in the leading haiku journals and anthologies. Through her business, Makino Studios, she shares her art, cards, calendars, and books. makinostudios.com

• Zak Shea – A McKinleyville-based woodworker, painter, sculptor and carpenter who creates functional and ornamental pieces of art furniture, sculpture, objects such as bowls, trays, carved paintings and countless wall hangings. Pieces of shell, rock, sand, bark, seaweed, as well as junk metal and other scrap materials often find their way into his art. instagram.com/zaksheaart

• Claire MacKenzie – A visual artist in Eureka, Claire has been painting since childhood and loves exploring and combing media. She is currently working in oil, watercolor, encaustic and wool fiber. She often displays artwork publicly, offers private art instruction, and has worked as a graphic designer for more than 20 years. claireastra.com

• Daniel Willson – Doing art again in 2017 after a 30-year hiatus, this multi-talented Humboldt artist started ceramics under the guidance of George Lee at Heartwood Mountain Sanctuary. Willson soon became a studio artist and instructor at Blue Ox Millworks and Historic Village, where he does slip cast sculpture work. He plans to launch his own business, Humboldt Ceramic Designs, in 2023. instagram.com/humboldtceramicdesigns

• Steph Thomas – This black, trans, non-binary multimedia artist brings the culture, power, and beauty of the 415 to the 707. While born and raised in San Francisco, Steph has lived and created in Arcata for more than six years. Their influence is a combination of lived experience and a reflection of the resilience of the black people who live within and around them. Their recent works have been digital paintings focused on the ever-expanding notion of Black Femininity, as well as the multi-faceted existence of Black Women and Femmes occupying space under capitalism. instagram.com/spicyprincezuko/

About Victor Thomas Jacoby

Victor Jacoby, an internationally recognized Eureka visual artist whose chosen medium was French tapestry, established the Victor Thomas Jacoby Fund with HAF+WRCF before his death in 1997 at age 52.

Victor’s vision inspired his friend Dr. Rosalind Novick to make an additional gift to the fund and expand his dream of supporting local artists.

This trust fund is dedicated to supporting Humboldt County visual artists and craftspeople and encourages exploring new ideas, materials, techniques, and mediums.

In addition, the fund distributes annual cash awards to artists or craftspeople selected by a review panel of leading arts representatives.

'Torn Together' : Annette Makino debuts new mixed media collages

Pictured is “Wind Blowing Upriver,” a collage piece by artist Annette Makino. (Courtesy of the artist)

HEATHER SHELTON, EUREKA TIMES-STANDARD, EUREKA, CA, SEPT. 2, 2022

Annette Makino has spent the last few years developing a new artistic style. The local artist, well-known for her Makino Studios line of greeting cards, prints and calendars, is now making Asian-inspired collage accompanied by original haiku.

“After 10 years of working with Japanese watercolors and sumi ink, and making fairly representational paintings, I was interested in exploring something new,” Makino said. “I did some online searches for Japanese mixed media and came upon a few collages that spoke to me. It turned out that one of the artists I really liked, Donna Watson, was giving a three-day workshop called ‘Wabi Sabi: The Spirit of Collage.’”

In February 2020, Makino flew to Tucson for that workshop, which she said was quite inspiring.

“Just a month later, the pandemic shut down life as we knew it and my Makino Studios art business slowed to a trickle,” Makino said. “Though stressful, this gave me the unexpected gift of free time, and less pressure to continue to create work in the style that my customers had come to expect. So, I was able to throw myself into experimenting with collage, with the Tucson workshop as a starting point.”

Makino’s new collage pieces are on display in September in a solo show, “Torn Together,” at Just My Type Letterpress Paperie, 235 F St., Eureka. An Arts Alive! reception is set for Saturday from 6 to 9 p.m. (Masks are strongly encouraged inside the store.)

“This is my first show in four years, and I’m excited to share my new work with the community,” Makino said. “I love the process of gathering interesting papers, painting and tearing them and transforming them into beautiful natural scenes.

“Nature … is a constant source of inspiration,” she said. “I especially love the landscapes and animals of Northern California, especially Humboldt County. I have created collages featuring Roosevelt elk, Coho salmon, foxes and owls, among other creatures. You’ll also find ocean scenes, redwood forests, oak trees and blackberry vines.”

Makino says because of her Japanese heritage and having spent time in Japan as a child and later in life, the Japanese aesthetic really speaks to her at a deep level.

“I say my work is Asian-inspired for several reasons. It includes washi papers from Japan and Thailand and other found papers from Japan, like vintage handwritten letters or postage stamps,” she said. “Some of my subjects are traditionally Japanese, like cherry blossoms, a red bridge or paper lanterns. Each piece is finished with my red name seal. And I write a haiku that either accompanies each piece or is placed right on the art, following a traditional Japanese art form called haiga.”

In collage, she said, the most time-consuming part of the work is actually creating the papers.

“All of my papers start out white, and I then paint, print or otherwise embellish them using lightfast acrylics,” artist Annette Makino said. Here is some of the paper used in her collage, “Wind Blowing Upriver,” which depicts the Trinity River. (Courtesy of the artist)

“All of my papers start out white, and I then paint, print or otherwise embellish them using lightfast acrylics,” Makino said. “Any given sheet might have several layers of color and pattern. I use rice paper, washi paper with embedded organic bits, old letters, maps, book pages, canceled checks and even junk mail.

“Some of my tools are brayers, gel press plates, and brushes,” she said. “I make prints from objects like leaves, paper towel rolls or crinkled tin foil. Occasionally, I’ll incorporate some crayon, charcoal, pencil or ink. I’ve also made pieces that include found objects like feathers, willow buds or buttons.”

Once she has all of her papers ready, Makino says she carefully tears them into the desired shapes and glues them together to create her artwork.

“There is a lot of trial and error in this phase,” said Makino, adding that each collage gets mounted on a cradled birch wood panel.

In addition to her new collage work, Makino is still producing cards, and has 10 new designs coming off the press in a couple weeks.

“I choose a few collages that I think could be successful as cards — in some cases I tweak the art — and then I come up with words suited to occasions like birthdays or condolences,” said Makino, whose book, “Water and Stone: Ten Years of Art and Haiku,” was recently honored in the Haiku Society of America’s Merit Book Awards.

For more information, go to makinostudios.com.

Merit Book Awards

Featured in Water and Stone, “our easy silence” is 11x14, painted with Japanese watercolors and sumi ink on paper.

Frogpond, Volume 45:2, Spring/Summer 2022. Haiku Society of America.

MERIT BOOK AWARDS

Judges: Agnes Eva Savich and Bill Cooper

HAIGA HONORABLE MENTION

Water and Stone: Ten Years of Art and Haiku by Annette Makino

(Makino Studios, Arcata, CA: 2021)

Perfectly painted pretty colors, poignant haiku, the best kind of storytelling haibun: this decade’s worth of the artist-poet’s work contains all the delights one could dream of from an inspiring haijin of our greater haiku family.

[EDITOR’S NOTE: A haijin is someone who writes haiku.]

Frogpond - Briefly reviewed

Frogpond, Volume 45:1, Winter 2022. Haiku Society of America.

by Kristen Lindquist

Water and Stone: Ten Years of Art and Haiku by Annette Makino (Makino Studios, Arcata, CA: 2021). 124 pages, 8” x 10”. Matte cover, perfect softbound. ISBN 979-8519290142. $24.99 from www.makinostudios.com.

Award-winning poet and artist Annette Makino’s first full-length collection—Water and Stone: Ten Years of Art and Haiku—beautifully reproduces fifty of her haiga, painted with Japanese watercolors and sumi-e ink, in a larger format for maximal appreciation. The haiga, most of which previously appeared in her yearly calendars, are arranged by season. However, this book is so much more than a series of seasonal pictures with haiku. Fifteen reflective, memoir-style haibun are interspersed with the haiga, creating a cohesive personal narrative that pulls the book together thematically through the year. Each haibun’s concluding haiku is repeated in the succeeding haiga, an echo which further enhances the connections between these strong, well-crafted works. Makino’s artwork, which she says has been influenced by traditional Japanese woodblock prints and the Japanese folk art of etegami, or simple postcards, has tremendous appeal. While her paintings can often feel more illustrative of the haiku they are paired with, her simple and sincere style makes them shine. For example, she pairs a painting of ripe tomatoes on the vine with this haiku: heirloom tomato / finally comfortable / in my own skin. Not much left to the imagination, and yet, thanks to Makino’s skill as a haiku poet, as well as the preceding haibun about growing older, this feels just right. Paired with a painting of hers, a question / answered with a question / clucking hens seems obvious—but that curious hen’s priceless expression indicates that this haiga is really a form of ars poetica, allowing us to see, and hear, the inspiration for this masterful haiku. Her straightforward approach is refreshing, and not without its own kind of depth and resonance. Some favorites: (1) a painting of Japanese anemones paired with cowlick / some part of me / still wild; (2) an image of a swimming dog paired with rippling river forever arriving at now; and (3) two horses standing side-by-side in a field paired with our easy silence / every puddle / sky-deep. While this book is clearly meant to showcase the haiga, I don’t want to overlook the universal appeal of her haibun, which speak directly to the reader’s heart about such topics as parenthood, being an artist, time passing, beloved pets, family history, and the natural world around us. There is so much to love and appreciate in this book, which I would also highly recommend as the perfect gift for a haiku poet to share with non-haiku-poet family and friends. Hopefully, we won’t have to wait ten more years for Makino’s next collection, but in the meantime, I also recommend her calendar, available through her website! 

Modern Haiku - Reviews: Briefly Noted

Modern Haiku, Volume 53.1, Winter-Spring 2022.

by Michele Root-Bernstein

Water and Stone: Ten Years of Art and Haiku by Annette Makino (Arcata, Calif.: Makino Studios, 2021). 123 pages, 8” x 10”. Matte four-color cards covers; perfectbound. ISBN 979-8-519290-1-42. Price: $24.99 from online booksellers.

This first full-length collection presents fifty haiga and fifteen autobiographical haibun by a poet whom Stephen Addiss places “among the leaders of haiku painting.” Makino organizes her work seasonally, interspersing linked forms in such a way as to tell a story of who she is. The haibun offer peeks into her family life, her love of art, and various of her philosophical musings in an engaging, down-to-earth manner. Considering “the (very) long view” of all our daily strivings, she remarks, “in geological time, all this effort will amount to approximately zip.” What matters in the end, “is the energy we put out into the world as we do our work. Call it love.” Love, indeed, is what seems to inspire Makino’s haiga, visually rendered in Japanese watercolors and sumi ink in an unpretentious style that illustrates and interprets her charming haiku. This reader’s favorites include “fog-shrouded coast / we listen / to the view,” superimposed on a foggy scene; “lines of foam /  over and over the sea / writes its story,” juxtaposed to some seagulls at the tide line; and “cowlick / some part of me / still wild,” linked to a close-up of pink wildflowers.

Haiku Canada Review: ShoHyōRan - Image and haiku in three books

Haiku Canada Review: ShoHyōRan, HCSHR 4:26. December 30, 2021. (Excerpted)

by Maxianne Berger

. . .

Water and Stone: Ten Years of Art and Haiku, by Annette Makino. Arcata, CA: Makino Studios, 2021. 979-8519290142. 124 pages. 24.99$US. www.makinostudios.com

. . . 

Happily quite different is Annette Makino’s Water and Stone. The paintings that support her haiga are as lovely and lively as any that illustrate children’s books, although she writes for all ages, looking at inner and outer life, often simultaneously.

The book is organized traditionally, according to season. The painting of three raccoons (fall) carries this truth:

watchful eyes
the wilderness
inside us

Cows grazing (summer), riffing on the “other side of the fence” reminds us about

the grass on this side—
the gift of wanting
what you have

The haiga in this book are interspersed with haibun, often being “home” to the haiku within the accompanying image. Winter includes “In the balance,” where Makino speaks of a local raccoon they’ve named Delilah. “. . . I wonder what it means to be wild, especially when human activity reaches every corner of the planet, . . .” The haiku that follows this paragraph is picked up in the painting on the facing page:

fox tracks . . .
who was I before
I was tamed?

The images in Annette Makino’s collection are lovely, the prose is limpid, and the haiku seem effortlessly to verbalize how we are part of the world.

water and stone
how we shape
each other

. . .

BUSINESS SENSE: Top 10 reasons to shop local for the holidays

Francis can often be found at Blake’s Books in McKinleyville.

ANNETTE MAKINO, TIMES-STANDARD, EUREKA, CA, Nov. 14, 2021

Almost three-quarters of all online shopping journeys now start with Amazon—and it’s easy to see why. The selection, convenience and price are truly tempting. 

But as the holidays approach, let’s consider the top ten reasons to shop local, especially from Humboldt artists and craftspeople. 

1. It keeps your money local. Studies show that independent retailers return more than three times as much to the local economy than chain stores. My greeting cards are printed at Bug Press in Arcata, so every card sale represents income to a local printer.

2. It makes for a vibrant community. We’ve all passed through those sad, lifeless towns that are just a collection of chain stores and strip malls. Shopping local supports the quirky, one-of-kind retailers that make Humboldt lively and unique.

3. It’s way more fun to shop local. Walk into the Holly Yashi Store and a staffer will offer you a free cappuccino. At Blake’s Books, you may be greeted by Francis, a sweet Bedlington Terrier. Stop by Dick Taylor Craft Chocolate and pick up a sampler of their bean-to-bar artisanal chocolate. Visit an artist in their studio and learn about their process.

4. You get more expertise. Unlike Amazon bots, independent store owners have to know their stuff. If you’re considering buying a fruit tree, Humboldt nurseries know what will grow best where. If you want to buy a book for your seven-year old niece who’s into dinosaurs, talk to your local bookseller.

5. Your purchases are more meaningful. Whether it’s a Bigfoot sweatshirt or a jar of Slug Slime from Los Bagels, local products come with a story. Also consider making gifts of experience, like a kayak tour of Humboldt Bay, a visit to the Redwood Sky Walk, or a gift certificate to The Larrupin’ Café. Or make a donation to Food for People in someone’s name.

6. Your items will be unique. That cozy wool hat knitted by a local craftsperson is much more special than a generic version anyone could find at Target. And your uncle who has everything would still love a bottle of locally distilled Redwood Rye or Jewell Gin.

7. It reduces your carbon footprint. Your locally purchased items are less likely to have been shipped from far away. Humboldt-based businesses also make far more local purchases for their own needs. And these stores are usually situated in walkable city centers instead of the outskirts of town.

8. Local products are ethically made. Mail order or big box products may have been manufactured in an overseas sweatshop or using questionable environmental practices. But Humboldt-made generally means responsibly sourced.

9. Humboldt stores support Humboldt nonprofits. Whether it’s donating raffle items, paying for sports team uniforms or making grants, local businesses are much more generous in supporting local charities than their big box counterparts.

10. It feels good to do good. It may cost a few bucks more, but it means a lot to know your money is being spent where it will really count.

Due to Covid, many of our arts and crafts fairs are canceled this season. But you can still find locally made products at the Made in Humboldt fair at Pierson’s and at independent retailers, grocery stores and art galleries. Buy local and enjoy happy Humboldt holidays!

•

Annette Makino is an Arcata-based artist who runs Makino Studios, offering cards, prints and calendars of her art. She confesses that her new book, Water and Stone: Ten Years of Art and Haiku, is available on Amazon, as well as makinostudios.com and in local stores.  

‘Water and Stone’: Arcata artist publishes first full-length collection of art and haiku

Pictured is the cover of Annette Makino's new book, "Water and Stone." College Cove is seen in the background.

EUREKA TIMES-STANDARD, EUREKA, CA, AUGUST 25, 2021

In this fractured world, a new book by award-winning haiku poet and artist Annette Makino hopes to provide a dose of Zen wisdom and humor. “Water and Stone: Ten Years of Art and Haiku” is a full-color collection that spans a decade of Makino’s paintings and poems.

“As I celebrated 10 years as a working artist this year, I decided to publish a book of the best of my art and haiku over that time,” Makino said. “Locals will recognize many beloved Humboldt landscapes like Moonstone Beach, College Cove, the Klamath River and Redwood National Park, plus native plants and animals.”

“Water and Stone” features 50 haiga — artworks combined with haiku — painted with Japanese watercolors and sumi ink. In the first full-length collection of her art and haiku, Makino finds beauty and meaning in the everyday world, be it the rhythm of ocean waves, the bittersweet joys of parenting or a traumatized rescue dog.

Sprinkled throughout the collection are 15 haibun — autobiographical prose pieces that include haiku. While deeply personal, these touch on universal themes such as the quest for meaningful work, finding love, raising a family, growing older and considering a place in the world.

Stephen Addiss, author of “The Art of Haiku,” has praised the book, saying, “With the publication of ‘Water and Stone,’ Annette Makino takes her place among the leaders of haiku painting (haiga).”

Annette Makino.

Makino is an award-winning haiku poet and artist based in Arcata who combines Japanese-inspired paintings and collages with her poems. Her work has appeared in the leading English-language haiku and haiga journals and anthologies. Makino’s poems have won honors in the Touchstone Awards, the Henderson Haiku Contest, the Brady Senryu Contest, the Porad Haiku Award, and the Jane Reichhold International Prize, among others.

Through the art business she founded in 2011, Makino Studios, she shares her haiga and offers prints, greeting cards and calendars of her art.

Published by Makino Studios, “Water and Stone” is 124 pages and features full color. It is sold in Eureka at Eureka Books, Eureka Natural Foods and the North Coast Co-op; in Arcata at the North Coast Co-op, Northtown Books, Plaza and Wildberries Marketplace; in McKinleyville at Blake’s Books, Eureka Natural Foods and Miller Farms; and in Trinidad at the Trinidad Trading Company. The book is also available at www.makinostudios.com or amazon.com for $24.99 plus tax and shipping.

For more information, visit www.makinostudios.com or call 707-362-6644.

BUSINESS SENSE: The business of art in Humboldt County

Artist Annette Makino in her studio. Photo: Brandi Easter

BY ANNETTE MAKINO, TIMES-STANDARD, EUREKA, CA, JUNE 27, 2021

Humboldt County is known for two things: redwoods and cannabis. Color us green! But we have another, less famous distinction: more artists per capita than any other county in California. Perhaps it’s the natural beauty that inspires so many artists. Or maybe it’s the acceptance of nontraditional lifestyles. 

But what does it take to survive as an artist here? When I first became a working artist 10 years ago, mixed media artist Claire Iris Schencke told me, “Humboldt is a great place to be an artist. It’s just not a great place to sell art.”

On the plus side, we have terrific support for artists. For the visual arts alone, we have a rich ecology of groups like the Humboldt Arts Council, the Ink People and the Redwood Art Association. 

There are artist-run cooperative galleries in Eureka, Arcata and Trinidad. Local events like Arts Alive!, North Coast Open Studios, and arts and crafts fairs help connect artists with the community. 

Our cities have made a point of supporting the arts: witness all the murals sprouting in Eureka and beyond. The City of Arcata’s draft Strategic Arts Plan has a goal of making Arcata affordable for artists.

On the minus side, unlike big urban areas, Humboldt doesn’t have a lot of “high net-worth individuals,” aka rich people, who can afford to buy original art. That is even more true since cannabis was legalized. (Of course, we artists deeply appreciate it when someone of modest means chooses to buy a piece they love.)

Even before the pandemic, many of our local galleries had closed, including the Piante, Black Faun, and First Street galleries in Eureka and the Mateel Gallery in Garberville. This is part of a discouraging national trend.

The hard truth is that very few Humboldt artists, no matter how skilled, can support themselves by selling original art. Some have related income from grants or teaching art; most of my art income comes from cards and calendars of my work. Other artists live on day jobs, rental or investment income, or a supportive partner. 

A conundrum for artists everywhere is that to be financially successful, an artist needs to be savvy about business and self-promotion. This is not necessarily their strength. And a morning spent on marketing is a morning away from the studio.

Well-known Arcata painter Alan Sanborn mainly sells watercolors from his home, by word of mouth. “I’m not very good at business; I’m just really good at painting,” he told me recently. “I could have been very good at business—as long as I didn’t paint.” Aye, there’s the rub.

So why do it? Why try to survive as an artist when there are far easier ways to make a living? 

Well, the rewards are priceless: to have the freedom to express yourself. To create something of value that no one else could create. And to share that vision with the world. Libby Maynard, Executive Director of the Ink People, puts it well: “If you’re an artist it’s a calling, and if you don’t make art, you go crazy.”

So despite the challenges of the business of art, I believe that along with redwood forests and cannabis farms, Humboldt will always be rich in artists.

————

Annette Makino offers art, cards and calendars of her work through local stores and at makinostudios.com. Her new book, Water and Stone: Ten Years of Art and Haiku, was just published by Makino Studios. 

Local artist and poet wins international haiku award

HAIKU WINNER: This collage by Annette Makino is made from painted and torn Japanese washi papers. Featuring a view of the Klamath River, it incorporates her winning one-line haiku. 

MAD RIVER UNION, ARCATA, CA, APRIL 21, 2021

On April 17, Arcata artist and poet Annette Makino was awarded one of the highest honors for haiku in English, a Touchstone Award from the Haiku Foundation. 

Announced on International Haiku Poetry Day, the award recognizes the best individual poems published the previous year.

Makino wrote her winning one-line haiku while on a creative retreat at the Klamath River in Orleans last summer. It reads:

long before language the S of the river

Makino has a business, Makino Studios, selling her art and haiku in the form of cards and calendars in stores and online. A mixed media artist, she creates both Japanese watercolors and Japanese-inspired collages

She said, “I’m truly thrilled to get this recognition, especially because I’m celebrating 10 years as a working artist and poet this spring. It’s the perfect capstone to a decade of learning and growing in my craft.”

The Haiku Foundation site explains, “The Touchstone Awards for Individual Poems recognize excellence and innovation in English-language haiku and senryu published in juried public venues during each calendar year.” 

This year the contest saw 1302 poems nominated from 31 countries, mostly selected by haiku editors. All the shortlisted poems are online at thehaikufoundation.org. 

Makino’s haiku have won many other awards and her poems and art regularly appear in the leading journals and anthologies of haiku in English.

She is currently at work on her first full-length book with the working title Water and Stone, to be published in the early summer. The culmination of a decade of painting and writing, the book will feature 50 of her haiga—artworks combined with haiku—painted with Japanese watercolors and sumi ink.

‘The ultimate affirmation’: Artist, poet Annette Makino wins a coveted Touchstone Award from the Haiku Foundation

This collage by Annette Makino is made from painted and torn Japanese washi papers. Featuring a view of the Klamath River, it incorporates her winning one-line haiku.

BY HEATHER SHELTON, TIMES-STANDARD, EUREKA, CA, APRIL 25, 2021

April 17 was International Haiku Poetry Day and, on that day, artist and poet Annette Makino received exciting news.

Makino, of Arcata, was awarded one of the highest honors for English-language haiku, a Touchstone Award from the Haiku Foundation. The annual award recognizes the best individual poems published each previous year.

“I’m thrilled that my haiku has won this award,” Makino said. “You should have heard the whooping from my house! I’ve been studying and writing haiku for 10 years now, and this feels like the ultimate affirmation that I’m getting the hang of it.”

This year, there were 1,302 poems nominated from 31 countries for the Touchstone Award.

“The Touchstone Award is unique as far as I know in that the poems must have won an award or been selected for publication before they can even be considered for nomination,” Makino said. “And most of the nominations come from haiku editors, not the poets themselves. So, it’s really the creme de la creme of all the haiku written in English that year. My husband refers to it as the Nobel Prize for haiku.”

Makino says her haiku was eligible to be nominated because it won the Porad Haiku Award sponsored by Haiku Northwest last fall. To read all of the Touchstone Award for Individual Poems winners for 2020, go to https://thehaikufoundation.org/touchstone-awards-for-individual-poems-2020.

Makino — whose work regularly appears in the leading journals and anthologies of haiku in English — wrote her Touchstone Award-winning one-line haiku while on a recent creative retreat at the Klamath River in Orleans. It reads:

long before language the S of the river

“I was walking along Ishi Pishi Road with my husband during a weeklong vacation/art retreat last summer. I looked down at the Klamath River, which parallels the road, and saw a beautiful S-shaped curve,” Makino said.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has gotten me thinking about big questions like human existence and mortality,” she added. “It occurred to me that the river was flowing long before our species came along, and will continue to flow long after our extinction. When I feel too caught up in our human dramas, there is something comforting in that knowledge.”

Artist and haiku poet Annette Makino is at work in her studio. (Photo by Brandi Easter)

Makino — whose haiku have won many other awards — first got involved with writing haiku in 2010 when her friend, Amy Uyeki, gave her a book that she and her mother had produced featuring poems by Uyeki’s Japanese grandmother.

“This introduced me to haiku and senryu, haiku’s humorous cousin,” Makino said. “From Amy, I also learned about the Japanese tradition of haiga, art combined with haiku. I soon started experimenting with writing my own poems and painting haiga.”

Makino says she loves how a haiku can convey so much in three lines or fewer.

“It’s a deceptively simple art form with great depth that rewards re-reading,” she said. “And in describing a unique personal experience or observation, a good haiku can connect to something universal. There is an intangible exchange between the poet and the reader.

“Most of us are sadly mis-taught that an English-language haiku needs to follow a five-seven-five syllable pattern,” she said. “In fact, that formula is based on a misunderstanding of how Japanese sound-syllables relate to English. Most serious haiku poets don’t follow this syllable count, writing shorter poems that more closely match the feel of Japanese haiku. There are other aspects of a haiku that are much more important and harder to master, such as the juxtaposition of two images or ideas.”

For the past decade, Makino has also run her business, Makino Studios, through which she sells her art (both Japanese watercolors and Japanese-inspired collages) and haiku in the form of cards and calendars in stores and online. She hopes to participate — as in years past — in some fairs and festivals in late 2021 if it is safe to do so.

“This past year, I have focused on creating collages using Japanese washi papers that I paint and other found papers like old letters, book pages, vintage stamps and maps,” she said. “I’m also having fun incorporating natural objects like feathers or sand dollars. And most of my pieces include an original haiku.

This collage by Annette Makino includes her original haiku: “bright green needles/on the fire-scarred redwood—/what we’ve each survived.” It is made with hand-painted rice paper printed with redwood twigs and ferns, sumi ink, acrylic paint, vintage Japanese letters and glue on illustration board.

“When I’m creating, I love how things can come together unexpectedly,” Makino said. “There is a lot of serendipity involved, especially in collage. For instance, I recently created a collage to go with a haiku about a fire-scarred redwood. I was happy to find a piece of rice paper with a big streak of black sumi ink on it to represent the burnt tree, and I came across some other papers that I had printed on a gel press using redwood twigs and ferns. I tore a couple of hand-written letters from 1920s Japan into vertical strips to represent trees in the background. It was a case where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”

Makino is now at work on her first full-length book with the working title “Water and Stone,” to be published in the early summer. The book, a culmination of a decade of painting and writing, will feature 50 of her haiga, painted with Japanese watercolors and sumi ink.

“I’ve always been a bookworm and a writer. Even as a kid, I wanted to publish books — about what, I had no idea,” she said.

“My art business, Makino Studios, is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. As I mark a decade as a working artist and haiku poet,” Makino said, “it struck me that I could capture the best of my creative work over this time in a full-color book.”

She added, “It’s been a satisfying process to go through all my art and haiku and decide what to include. After I chose 50 pieces, I felt that the rhythm of so many haiku in a row was a bit monotonous. So, I drew from the past 10 years of Makino Studios blog posts and wrote 15 haibun, a Japanese literary form combining autobiographical prose with haiku. These are short vignettes or essays that will weave through the book. It was a challenge to learn a whole new writing technique, but I’m happy with the results, as I think these pieces add a lot of texture and depth to the book.”

For more information about Makino and her work, visit www.makinostudios.com or call 707-362-6644.

A ‘silver lining’: Amid the pandemic, a local artist finds a whole new artistic approach

Annette Makino of Arcata has been making art since she was a child. She’s now creating collage using hand-painted and torn washi papers combined with old letters, book pages, maps and other found papers. Her work also includes original haiku.

BY HEATHER SHELTON, TIMES-STANDARD, EUREKA, CA, NOV. 13, 2020

Local artist Annette Makino has found herself with more time on her hands during the COVID-19 health crisis, and she has used those extra hours to come up with a brand new artistic approach.

“With fairs and art shows canceled this year and some of my retailers seeing reduced sales, the pandemic has slowed down my business,” Makino said. “The silver lining of this difficult time is that I’ve had more time to play in the studio.”

After 10 years of working in watercolor and sumi ink, Makino recently switched gears and started making collages from hand-painted and torn washi papers, sometimes combined with old letters, book pages, maps, junk mail and other found papers. The collages, she said, draw inspiration from the natural landscapes of Northern California and from her Japanese heritage.

“I start with white washi paper, which is traditional Japanese paper that often has bits of leaves, rice straw or other plant fibers embedded in it,” Makino said. “I mix my own paint colors and paint the paper, then tear it as needed for my collages. … Recent collages include bits of a musical score from my choir, old family photos and a letter from my sister. It’s really meaningful to be able to incorporate different aspects of my life into my art.”

Annette Makino says the COVID-19 pandemic has influenced her haiku and art. This work was created in recent months. “(It) reflects a sense of the transience of human existence,” Makino said.

She added: “The fun thing about collage is that you can use any materials you want to make something interesting and meaningful. I paint and decorate all sorts of papers for my art, but I also save things like old keys, bird feathers and foreign stamps for possible use in collages. It fascinates me how a beautiful collage can come together from torn paper and odd bits.”

One thing that hasn’t changed in Makino’s work over the past months is the incorporation of original haiku in her creations.

Makino — who has been making art since she was a child — learned about the Japanese tradition of “haiga,” or art combined with haiku, in 2010.

“I started creating my own haiga, writing haiku and making paintings with Japanese watercolors and sumi ink,” she said. “In 2011, I started my art business, Makino Studios, which sells cards, prints and calendars of my work in stores and online.”

Haiku, she said, is a compact form of poetry, typically three short lines.

This original haiku, featured on Annette Makino’s collage work, was just published in Modern Haiku magazine.

“To write it effectively, you have to distill an observation or experience down to its essence,” Makino said. “I appreciate how the haiku mindset helps me to be more present in the moment, noticing little things like the way the woods look after a rainstorm.”

She shares this haiku — just published in Modern Haiku magazine — about her imagery above:

shortest day
on the tip of each fern
a drop of light

A few weeks ago, Makino attended a virtual haiku conference, the Seabeck Haiku Getaway, which is normally held in Washington State.

“There were about 160 haiku poets from 14 countries, some staying up all night in their time zone to participate,” she said.  “It was a lot of fun to connect with this community, even via Zoom. I gave a presentation on my new collage haiga there, the first time I’d presented this new work in a public forum, and I’m happy to say it was very warmly received.”

Pictured is one of Annette Makino’s new collage works. The featured haiku recently won first place in the Porad Haiku Award program.

Makino’s haiku are regularly published in leading journals of haiku and have also appeared in a number of haiku anthologies, including the Red Moon Anthology, and she just won first place in the Porad Haiku Award sponsored by Haiku Northwest for this work:

long before language the S of the river

“It was written during a walk along the Klamath River in Orleans, and my collage is based on a photo I took there,” she said.

Twelve of Makino’s collages are featured in her 2021 haiga calendar which, along with note cards and signed prints, are available at the “Made in Humboldt” event at Pierson Garden Shop in Eureka through Dec. 24.

“This will be the only fair where you can find my work this season,” said Makino, whose work is also available at several local stores in Eureka, Arcata, McKinleyville, Trinidad and Manila. Her work is available on her website, https://www.makinostudios.com, as well.

In addition to her new collages, Makino is still offering her watercolor cards and prints for sale.

“I’m grateful to have a loyal fan base here in Humboldt and I want to make sure people can still find their favorite designs,” she said.

Peeking Inside North Coast Open Studios

BY GABRIELLE GOPINATH, NORTH COAST JOURNAL, EUREKA, CA, JUNE 7, 2018

The interior of Joan Gold's dazzlingly patterned Eureka studio, where works in progress hang on the walls. Photo by Gabrielle Gopinath

It's the 20th anniversary of North Coast Open Studios and Monica Topping, the event's hardworking organizer, is in a hurry. NCOS has 17 first-time participants this year, she says, as well as an impressive roster of "charter artists" — those who have exhibited since the inaugural North Coast Open Studios event two decades ago. "We try to have between 10 and 20 percent new artists in any given year," she says. "We try to include youth art, as well as art made by new and upcoming artists — not all of whom are necessarily young. A lot of times new artists are people who have been making art for years, who finally decided to take the opportunity to bring their work into the public eye."

Topping works for months ahead of time to make the event run smoothly but once the event gets under way, "it's no longer mine," she says. "It becomes the artists'. And I love that transformation that happens. I just get to show up, take pictures and say hi. Every year I try to visit as many artists as I can." She emphasized the diversity and variety of work on display, as well as the different ways for viewers to approach the event. Those looking to win a gift certificate by playing the event's popular bingo card will maximize that diversity. Those with a particular interest in a certain medium could specialize "and just do two weekends of ceramics," while a trip organized around the theme of place could result in "a special trip to see art being made in your neighborhood."

Likewise, artists approach the event in different ways. Charter member Alan Sanborn first showed his watercolor landscapes in the inaugural North Coast Open Studios event 20 years ago. He has been hosting open studio events on June weekends most years since, so much so that he is able to quip, "I've never even seen North Coast Open Studios!" In Sanborn's Arcata home studio, light-filled watercolor renderings of sites like Agate Beach and the Russian River crowd the walls, seeming to bloom in the ample natural light. He remembers that the event's early years "started out pretty low-key and small. But probably by the third year, I guess that takes us back to the Clinton years, the economy was booming. For two years in a row, I sold everything on the walls." he says, beaming at the recollection. Though sales have dwindled since what Sanborn remembers as their peak, he relishes the experience as much now as he did then. While making sales is nice, he says, "we do it primarily to show our work to the community, to make contact with the audience. To show that there is a cultural interest out there."

Across town in her Eureka studio, veteran painter Joan Gold's abstract works occupy every inch of available studio wall. Gold, who is preparing for a solo show at Black Faun Gallery in November, explained that she often works simultaneously on multiple paintings this way. Entering her studio feels like stepping into a kaleidoscope. Paintings at every scale and stage of completion surround you, dashed and patterned with vibrating matrices in azure, turquoise, hot pink, tomato red and parakeet green, layering on top of other paintings for a retinal experience that's nothing short of dazzling.

On the other side of Humboldt Bay, ceramicist and second-time Open Studios participant Jen Rand was at the Samoa Women's Club, showing a graceful range of high-fired stoneware on an oceanfront veranda. Many of her pieces are ornamented with a rhizomatic design that recalled tree branches or roots. She was happy to talk about process: "I start with a dark clay called Black Mountain and then I put on a liquid porcelain slip, and then a glaze on top of that." The process of firing at high temperatures, she says, allows each piece's ultimate appearance to be shaped by chance.

At the same venue, artist and designer Annette Makino is showing a selection of her popular greeting cards featuring Japanese-inflected watercolors and haiku. She describes the event as "a chance to connect directly with people. I am creating for the market," she explains, "and I sell a lot in stores and online. But in those venues, you don't get that sense of direct connection with the members of your audience like you do here."

"People have come up to me in the past (at North Coast Open Studios) and told me about a particular piece, describing why it has been meaningful to them," Makino recalls. "One time a woman told me that she had been having a fight with her sister and she sent her one of my cards, hoping to make peace, and in fact they were able to be reconciled. And, of course, I was happy to hear that. For me, laboring in my studio, the work doesn't really get reconciled until it goes out there in the world."

The 20th annual North Coast Open Studios event runs June 1-3 and June 9-10 at locations from Trinidad to Scotia. The free schedule is available in newsstands and at www.northcoastopenstudios.com

Gabrielle Gopinath is an art writer, critic and curator based in Arcata.