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.