Munio Makuuchi, poet, artist, drew praise for etchings

Munio Takahashi Makuuchi, a Seattle native, poet and artist, was known for his dark, symbolic etchings and origami creations.

Mr. Makuuchi died of a heart attack last Monday (May 29) at the Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage, Calif., after heart surgery there at the Heart Institute of the Desert several days earlier. He had traveled there for treatment, said his son, Jamie Makuuchi, of Denver. He was 65.

Born Howard Takahashi in Seattle in 1934, he was celebrated in the printmaking world for his black and white enigmatic etchings, often of large images of people or birds.

Mr. Makuuchi made more than 200 etchings with a technique called drypoint, using a steel point to scratch designs onto a copper plate to create grooves that are filled with ink.

His last signed etching, "Mooncatcher," is part of the Wisconsin Sesquicentennial Portfolio.

"He had a deep sensuality. You weren't sure what he was saying. Everything was open to interpretation," said Warrington Colescott, professor emeritus of art at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, who had been friends with Mr. Makuuchi since teaching him when he was a graduate student.

"He used a mixture of oriental and occidental forms. There was a blending of racial characteristics, a blending of species and a blending of images," he said.

Mr. Makuuchi's art was greatly influenced by his years, from age 7 to 11, in a Japanese relocation camp in Minidoka, Idaho, during World War II, and later in a labor camp in Twin Falls, Idaho.

`It was there that I became utterly fascinated by flying paper airplanes. For with them, I could soar over barbed-wire fences and machine-gun towers to places one could only dream about," he stated on his Web site, www.virtual-cafe. com/munio.

He later would merge his love of paper airplanes with the Japanese folding art of origami to create "Aerogami," a term he said he coined to express his lighter side.

The darker side he saved for his etchings, prints and poetry, which were published in "From Lake Minidoka to Lake Mendota," a reference to his journey from Idaho to Wisconsin.

At age 20, he took his mother's maiden name as his artistic name. He served in the Army and earned a bachelor's degree from the University of Colorado in Boulder.

He also earned two master's of fine-arts degrees at the University of Iowa in Iowa City and the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

While he practiced his craft, he taught printmaking at high schools and at the University of Wisconsin in Janeville and at the University of Ife in Nigeria.

After suffering several heart attacks, he returned to Seattle about six years ago, "homerunning like a salmon to headwaters, scuffed and scarred," he wrote.

His work has appeared in various collections, including the Elvehjem Museum of Art in Madison, the Rosenwall Collection at The National Gallery, The Gruenwald Graphic Center at UCLA and the Portland Art Museum. His work was published by Andrew Balkin Editions.

"He was an individual. He made drawings and put them all together. He was a composer and a creative artist," said Gordon Gilkey, curator of prints and drawings at the Portland Art Museum.

"I hope his work endures."

In addition to his son, Mr. Makuuchi is survived by his granddaughter, Kolby; his sister, Harriet Takahasi of Chicago; and his aunt, Dorothy Kanda of Seattle.

Funeral services are scheduled at 11 a.m. tomorrow at the Evergreen-Washelli Cemetery and Funeral Home in Seattle.