Long-Sleeved Kimono: 🌸 "Umeko And Dog"
100 Haiku + A Series of 20 Lupita Portraits Made After Japanese Woodblock Prints
Welcome
Hello! I’m Emily Lupita. I’m a travel writer & artist from rural Iowa currently living between Iowa City and Ankara, the capital of Turkiye. I’m also an English teacher & editor.
Long-Sleeved Kimono is a series of 100 haiku and 20 Lupita portraits made after traditional Japanese woodblock prints. It’s an art project I started 20 years ago when I was living in Japan. I post about it on - Emily Lupita Explores - my creativity journal where I share explorations from my art desk & cultural travels, as well as motherhood with my two Autistic sons.
🌸 “Umeko And Dog”
About the Project
Twenty years ago, I went to live in Japan to teach English at a high school. I loved my experience there and stayed for three years. While in Japan, I had the unique opportunity to study with three masters: Hirakawa Sensei (karate), Niizaki Sensei (Japanese language and culture), and Fukutomi Sensei (haiku). I began this project in 2004 as an homage to my teachers—to show my gratitude for all they taught me.
The Japanese name that Hirakawa Sensei gave me is Umeko - meaning “small plum.” I treasure this name and the memory of the ceremony when he presented me with my first name-embroidered belt - complete with the specific kanji he’d chosen. A memory I honor here by naming the woman in these portraits “Umeko.”
It’s taken half my current lifetime, but I’m ready to finish it now. May it be a blessing.
The Original
The original “Beauty and Dog” was a woodblock print created by Japanese master printer Kitagawa Utamaro (1753-1806) ( Ukiyo-e.org ).
Lupita Portrait - “Umeko And Dog”
I love the woodblock prints featuring women holding things, playing instruments, and doing specific tasks, like combing hair. I admire the art project & book, “Women Holding Things” by artist Maira Kalman, and purposefully chose woodblock scenes of women engaged in everyday moments - perhaps for a similar reason as Maira speaks about here.
I love “Beauty and Dog” because of the relaxed way Beauty is holding her dog and how much it reminds me of my own beloved miniature dachshund, Mavi, who was my dearest companion for 13 years. When I finally painted the dog (many years after choosing this particular woodblock print for my project), I changed the breed to a red long-haired miniature dachshund in honor of the memory of my own little sweetheart. It turned out to look just like Mavi and brought her back to me in a way, if only for a brief moment. (“Mavi” means “blue” in Turkish.) 💙
Incredible how the people, pets, and places we love throughout our lives
show up in our creative projects in different, sometimes surprising, ways.
Haiku
Notes (about these 100 haiku in general): I studied with Fukutomi Sensei a few times a week during an intensive few months in 2004, at the end of my 3-year stay in Japan. I took the train from Miyakonojo into Miyazaki City to meet with him at his home studio, about an hour each way. He was elderly and a bit frail, so we would take these long, slow walks around the nearby park, talking poetry.
Many of the haiku take place on a train because on the train ride back home, my mind would be swirling with his lessons while watching the mountains out the window and the people around me going about their daily commutes.
Notes (poems ⬆️ above): 1st haiku - Muta Machi is an entertainment district where my Japanese girlfriends and I would go out to sing karaoke after summer festivals. Sometimes we would be dressed up in traditional Japanese yukata - summer kimonos - and wearing matching geta - traditional Japanese wooden shoes. The area is full of pachinko parlors, which are a type of pinball game often used in gambling. And I distinctly remember walking past street food vendors selling grilled octopus on sticks - takoyaki.
Notes (poems ⬆️ above): 1st haiku - bento - is a traditional Japanese lunchbox. It’s flat with sectioned square areas inside for different food. My students would bring incredible bentos to school for lunch - they were like works of art. Each section was a different gorgeous color, and they kept their bentos in beautiful bags that also had their own reusable set of chopsticks. (A bento looks just like the emoji 🍱 for food.)
I’d love to hear your ideas. Please share your thoughts with me in the comments.
🦋 News & Creative Projects
I’m on social media: Instagram: @EmilyLupitaExplores and Facebook here.
Check out my books on Amazon by searching my author name - here.
New Art Shop (yay!!): My new Lupita artwork shop is now open on Threadless - I’ll be adding more to it each week - here: emilylupitaexplores.threadless.com
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❤️ the Haikus. Thank you for giving us the meaning of the Japanese words.
After reading your stories from around the world, I feel like I have been on vacation! Keep writing! Thank you for sharing!