Autobio/Graphics Gallery

"I was born 9/7/34 in Seattle Washington. I was given the name Howard Munio Takahashi. In 1961 I chose my artistic name, Munio Makuuchi, using my mother's maiden name. From age 7 to 11 I was a child POW in a relocation camp in camp Minidoka, in Idaho. Pa being a proud samurai never returned to the village that threw him out so unceremoniously, though he kept a vial of sand, land, and sea salt of the N.W. with him. He placed his family in an American labor camp in Twin Falls Idaho in the shadow of The Big Camp of 'un tar paper' shelters for it was home 32 years after the war. I was never allowed to forget...the last of the (J/A) Mohicans left in a secondary migratory camp. I was sent off to a German Lutheran M.S. preppy Academy called Concordia, in Portland Oregon. I was the first minority, the first Japanese American ever enrolled there; elemetary school in Twin Falls also- 13 years of Missionary schools.

Hear "Hoe That Row" (Real Audio, 136K)

"My job experiences:

1. Paper boy, route #32

2. Grocery packer and veggie stand care

3. Canteen clerk in labor camp

4. Spud picker & farm laborer as a child

5. Hired hand on farm

6. Grease monkey

7. Gardener and lawn mower

8. Ham sandwich sales at Valpo campus

9. Door to door sales of safety belts

10. Dishwasher - busboy - waiter

11. Greenhouse helper

12. Factory worker

13. Hospital orderly

14. Miner in Iowa's first mine

15. Social work playground supervisor

16. Taught grade school, high school, community college, & university Fine Arts

17. Care giver to Aut Dot, yet she takes care of me...

"With only $2000 I trundled off to college for thirteen years like a trusting sparrow to earn 3 degrees: BA, MA and Masters in Fine Arts. With almost a BSW I avoided statistics and joined the USA Army - to be awarded 30% VA for permanent brain damage. On the GI & Disabled Bills went to Valparaiso, Colorado, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin Universities. I received an MA at Iowa in 1962 and a commendation in studio from Mauricio Lasansky, yet the art departments of America made me struggle for eight years total to acquire an MFA degree. Most people receive it in two years!? In 1962 I married a Northern Iowa gal who gave me a son. Then nine months later she gave me freedom to art it...

"I taught Fine Arts high school through university. In the 60s the universities were being pressured to hire minorities, and I was sardonically placed at UW Wisconsin, Janesville, Rock County, where a majority of the Battan Death March Battalion came from - Oh Lord, Oy Vey! Why me? Of all historical places go I?

"Later I taught in Africa at Adeyemi College for one year and at the University of Ife for six years, to recieve a 'rec' form Wole Soyinka.

"I returned to Madison, Wisconsin in 1985 to have 3 heart attacks in the VA hospital to be ignored 3 times for eight hours. A couple years later I was made to wait 9 days with a broken appendix.

"I returned to Seattle 53 years later, homerunning like a salmon to headwaters scuffed and scarred- 30% VA brain damage, 4 hernia operations, diabetes II, high blood pressure and cholesterol, 3 heart attacks, and 3 bypasses slated for 5. An Amerhaiku:

"I am known mostly as an aerogamist, despite trying to be an artist for 32 years. It's the lighter side of my being, a craft I learned when I flew paper airplanes past machine gun tower guards and over barb wire fences to places I could only dream about. Last year Mr. Gordon Gilkey, who is the curator of the International Print Show at the Portland, Oregon Art Museum and an international art treasure, stated, 'Munio stands alone in vision amongst american printmakers.'

"Just too 'Rascalputin' to be put away. Actually wrote an essay at UW titled 'Magical Mythical Mystical Mystery Tour'. Still playing hoops in the neighborhood pick-up games- I've still got the best hook shot form the top of the key, coast to coast.

"So I've touched all bases, from preppy school to fraternity (TKE), to Ivy League, to university teaching for 11 years, then back to washing and cleaning in Madison's first Thai restaurant, back to being on welfare and SSI again. Back to where I started from, but I am still arting it... God Man and Self willing!!"