SO MUCH good news to share!
The first-ever Haiku Milieu Calendar debuts in stocking-stuffer size for 2023!
The debut of the 2022 Haiku Milieu Holiday Card!
And…drumroll please…
HAIKUMILIEU.ART will be live this Black Friday!!! With fun things for you to bring into your lives for the Holidays, or for no reason at all!
it began as all things do, with the enthusiasm that begets worlds.
And in the beginning, it was as falling in love always is. Trancendent. Everything else looked like it wasn’t trying very hard, even those things you’d poured yourself into. This new thing. This is going to be IT! This will change my LIFE!!
In reality, what is it that changes your life?
The myriad tiny little things you do every day. The things that typically elude your notice. Like the way you drive a certain routes, hello to people on the way into the office; and also the way you might grumble to yourself on the way out of the office. These are the things that make a life.
That kindly rearrange themselves so your new great love has some room. Truth is, they are excited for this new love as much as you are; maybe things will change around here! Shake up the monontony of this ordinary and wonderful life.
So it went when I had the idea to launch haikumilieu.art.
It started because I was tired of all the odds and ends of merchandise still sitting in my basement. I imagined them, listening to the dehumidifyer go on and off, the water heater turn on, Robin and I rushing past them with a load of laundry here, a hasty search for something there.
I keep wanting to make physical objects and share them; I don’t want to keep having to find room for them in my basement.
Hmmmmmm. I thought.
And haikumilieu.art was born.
On a weekly basis, I’ll upload the new Haiku Milieu. If you see one you absolutely love and don’t want to wait for the next book to see if it’s in there, you can go there and pick up a poster, a card, a coffee cup, or my personal favorite – MAGNETS!
Sounds obvious. Print on Demand! Sounds SOOOOO simple, right?
Except for…
I have made more than 10,000 haiku, taken more than 35,000 photos, and published 1,250 of them online and another 150 in the Sunday emails. Guess where they all are? All in mixed together. With everything else from all other parts of my life.
So first, the great sorting. It has begun, and it will be ongoing. For a long time. And I mean, maybe as long as forever because once you dig into your archive, there’s just a lot to process. Even with the best of intentions, you can get lost within 30 seconds between memories, ancient urgent things you meant to do years ago and now could do quickly, and the sheer overwhelm of having to move through it all.
Enough of it has occurred, however, for haikumilieu.art to be LIVE THIS FRIDAY! (Did I say that already?)
Second, the great reckoning of with what you have created. I am lucky enough to have had several Haiku Milieuvians who I respect and admire ask me for a calendar. We hit the threshold with the number of requests and so it moved to the first position in the cue for the 2022 Holiday Season.
What is it you ask? A CALENDAR!
And as I tend to do, of course I wanted it to be BIG. A big, saddle-stitched, high-quality paper, 4-color love affair that would inspire you on a monthly basis to find the extraordinary in the every day.
But then I learned about resolution. It’s one thing to share images on the web, another thing to gather them in an 8x8 book; and quite another thing to reproduce them in larger formats.
So now my brain, one foot in this world, trying to bring something new into it, and one foot in the past, trying to get something out of it to get it into the real world of now, almost exploded.
Remember, my art teacher in kindergarden made fun of another student’s art. My high school art teacher ridiculed my painting of a bird for being so much larger than the landscape. I CRIED when I thought I would have to take more art classes to graduate! And now I have to learn about photo resolution?!?
Who am I even?
My husband, you know, Robin? The one with the art degree? Stepped in and said calmly, “can you make a smaller calendar?”
what?
who even says that? To ME?
when have I EVER gone smaller??
yet…
my heart stopped pounding. I could hear the tv on in the other room instead of the blood pounding in my ears. my overwhelming desire to consume the entire box of gluten-free crackers subsided.
OK, I thought. He’s on to something.
SMALLER.
a haiku.
a single espresso.
how rain sounds as its moving towards you.
how the moon looks as it’s waxing.
Turns out, most of my favorite things ARE smaller. If it turns our yours are too, you can pre-order both here:
You can pre-order your 4.75 x 4.75, 2023 Haiku Milieu Calendar here and the 2022 Holiday Card here.
