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!

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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.  

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.

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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. 

‘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.