Chapter 3.2.2.
Haiga
Simply put, a haiga is a combination of a written (preferably in one’s own hand—or forehead, of course!) haiku and a drawing/painting/photo that illustrates it. Usually, this is a single-person work, i.e., the poet illustrates his own spiritwork. However, pairwise collaboration is quite common. Something like ”Music by:…, Lyrics by:… “
Drawing/painting was rather tricky for me then, and the results generally didn’t match the original idea. But to manipulate (capitpulate?) already finished photos—now, this seemed doable. Pre-stroke, I’d been an amateur photographer. Even digital image manipulation was not terra incognita for me since my last job included much of it. As I couldn’t handle a camera alone, I needed a suitable already finished photo. Luckily, a good friend of mine (we took our first photo steps together way back in the late ’70s) published his digital b/w photos on a photo website. I used/manipulated some of them and added some color and my spiritworks. I did not want to imply that the originals are flawed or imperfect! I just commented on them in a somewhat unusual way. (Actually, it was pondering on a photo of his that made me venture into my haiga experiment!)
My haiku phase lasted for a couple of years. Its finish silenced also my attempts at haiga, several of which I am enclosing here as an illustration:
