Cover : Endangered species in Japan : Tsushimayamaneko +
There are diminishing creatures due to ecological imbalance. A creature, once extinct, is not bought back to life. There are many measures to take, such as
protecting habitat areas, expelling or not bringing in alien species which are natural predators for them. Air, sea, light of the sun, soil, animal, fish, plant, insect, microbe, human. All of them are inter-related and are affecting one another.
An important thing for us is, in order to have a livable life, each and every one of us to rethink of own life and the social structure. Cherish the earth, other creatures and all venerable lives. May all people share their resources with best care.
Endangered species illustrated here:
Tsushimayamaneko
Kenaganezumi
Moriaogaeru
Takanekimadaraseseri
Illustration : chitose chitose
An illustrator. With the theme of endearing picture, fauna and flora are humorously expressed with fully spaced composition and abundant colors.
A successful competitor of 2019 Bologna International Original Picture Book.
Latest works : The collaboration with the Afternoon Tea brand sundry goods advocating “Have a sustainable life around/Live an earth-friendly life.” The cover art for the book “ Is this what humans are living?” by Keiko Nakamura/Izumi Naito (Publisher : Poplar). etc.
instagram:@ctscts_art
twitter:@chitosechitose_
Cover Tittle : KUJIKA
January/February : Livelihood with all in circulation. Rainbow Valley Farm (New Zealand. 1988~2008)
“Rainbow Valley Farm” is reputed to be the most beautiful permaculture site in the world.
Joe and Trish, making use of permaculture methods, changed a barren area,
so called by everybody, to paradise for a diversity of creatures.
Besides the beautiful appearance, there is no ineffectiveness for a daily life.
Impressive is the design to effectively take in energy from the nature, all things being circulated and pursing comfortability.
Freshly harvested vegetables and butchered meats decorate the table, comforting weary body. Warm light through windows, smoke from the chimney, laughing voices, animal's sleep-breath and stadium of stars, all of these filled my heart with gratitude.
Rainbow Valley Farm in Matakana, New Zealand By Trish Allen
I lived for 25 happy years on Rainbow Valley farm with my late husband Joe Polaischer who died in 2008.
We started in 1988 - Joe and I bought 21 hectares of rundown farmland in Matakana.
It was eroded, weed and pest infested. But we were inspired by permaculture and we set about healing the land and turning it into a permaculture paradise.
Very quickly the land began to produce an abundance of food. We planted 800 fruit and nut trees, made extensive vegetable gardens, built a barn and a house from mud bricks and an earth roof, and farmed fish in ponds. We grew rice and shitake mushrooms. We also had bees, house cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, ducks and guinea fowl. After Joe died I sold the farm and moved to the village.
The current owners of Rainbow Valley Farm have planted many trees to re-establish the forest cover. Thank you Akiko for your beautiful illustration of Rainbow Valley Farm.
Trish Allen
Illustration by Kicodesign、 Akiko Tauchi
After graduation from University of Japan, Art Dept. in 1999, I worked for an ad- production company. For one year from 2006, I visited permaculture sites of North and South Islands of New Zealand to learn permaculture in daily life.
In the same year I took and completed Permaculture Design Course at Rainbow Valley Farm. Having returned to Japan, I started KIcodesign as a freelance graphic designer in Kyoto engaging in community-based activities. With natural and warm-sensed design as my central principle, I am serving various media like pamphlets, fliers, websites and so on
Clients are business enterprises, public agencies, universities, shops, medical clinics, NPO, etc.
www.kicodesign.com
March/April : Passive (balcony )Watering system
Water goes where it wants to go. We can force it to go where we want, but opposing it takes energy, we can never relax.
This passive (balcony )watering system is designed to use the natural inclination of water in a way that also serves us, and kept my edible balcony garden safely watered, all by itself, when I went Traveling to Japan each year.
Rainwater collects in the wall-mounted tank. When the tank overflows, it fills the first fishpond. When it reaches the ideal level, the magic of plumbing makes it overflow down to the second pond. Oops! I forgot to put a mesh to keep the fishies in.
It’s okay if the second pond overflows, it’s in a wetland with a swale to direct water elsewhere in the garden.
The pot plants are watered by a 3,000 year old desert system of buried terracotta gourds, know as Wetpots. The pressure from the hanging water basket keeps them full. When the surrounding soil is dry, osmosis pulls the water out of the pots. This means, the plants can ‘order’ a drink whenever they want one. They controls there own life, so they are never water-stressed, never soggy. Our lives can be like that too, set up to meet our true needs, so we can flourish.
Illustration by Cecilia Macaulay
Cecilia fell in love with Permaculturist and Japanese culture 30 years ago, and is a pioneer of how to bring these two ways of being into our homes and spirits. She does hands-on Declutter consulting for creative, messy people, and ‘Zen your Home’ online workshops you can join in. She lives in Daylesford, near Melbourne. Her dream is to start her next share house of lovely people and delicious, flower-filled gardens, She loves cats, tea ceremony, cosplay thatched-roof farmhouses and elegant dinner parties.
May/June : Marching in the early dawn.
Time between day and night: Twilight after the sunset or early dawn before the first light.
As the rain withdraws, various creatures start, from among enlivened plants, to become active.
Closely watch their activities, ecologies, figures and forms and you will see there the spreading mysterious and miraculous world, unimaginable as reality. It is just like a dream or an illusion changing figures every second. My purpose of drawing is to connect such a phantasmal world with the real one to some extent.
Illustration by Satoru Kuboyama
It was in 1990 when he encountered works (engravings) of contemporary aboriginal artists in Australia that he drew inspiration and became a full scaled artist. One year after starting the art work, he had his first personal exhibition and, thereafter, had personal and or group exhibitions almost every year.
Since 2012, he began to draw imaginable insects and published “Picture Book of Insects of Stars” in 2015 and “Picture Book of Fake Insects “in 2017. “Imaginable Insect Musium to enjoy Coloring ” was published by Rironsha in 2016.
In 2021, he participated in an event taken place at the basement of Louvre Museum. His activity covers many kinds of works as well as personal exhibitions.
July/August :
This is the illustration used for cover art of a permaculture book , “Catalogue for Everybody’s Earth,” created together with some of my important associates. Referring to the chapter “ Play at the edge,” I wondered “what is the Edge? I was excited to draw expecting there might be something interesting where things intersect!
Illustration by Wakana Kawamura
Illustrator & Permaculture Designer.
After graduated from the university, she started to work as a nurse in Kobe but, fascinated by American music and art, jumped out to the west coasts of USA in 2003. Out there, she found herself taken with green things. So, she entered landscape faculty to study botany and designing, and there encountered Permaculture.
She returned to Japan in 2016. What she has been doing is “to create eatable woods” throughout Japan. As a member of Permaculture Dash Lab, she works as permaculture designer and also has made a debut as an illustrator composing “Earth Catalogue for everybody”
Now in Hamamatsu is she engaged in Forest Garden Project, which is to create eatable woods.
September/October : Kunitachi Hatakenbo (Community garden in Kunitachi )
This is an urban-type farm, situated in Yaho Kunitachi City, the middle of Tokyo Metropolis.
This farm is, surrounded by vegetable fields, very bustling, not only with silky chickens,
little horses and such like but also full of living matters in farm ditches and fields. Earth ovens
made of soil of the field. The square with the squashy mat of sawdust. Voices enjoying BBQ.
Not to say of local parents and children, those from other towns, students, all kinds of people and generations are enjoying fields and spending time.
Illustration by Chie Fukufuku
Illustrator and cartoonist. My main current activity is on drawing WEB comics.
fukufukuchie.com/
November/December : Life with firewood
For our family, firewood is important resources.
But it is hard work for us to secure enough for one year.
Such being the case, we have designed a new heating method:
Rocket stove, which effectively heats with less firewood, is combined with furnace, oven, and thermal bench.
KURADO (Joe,Takae and Katsuya Kobayashi)
We relocated to Miharu Cho, Fukushima Pref. in order to practice Permaculture but Again, in 2011, moved to kume Minami Cho Okayama Pref., due to the earthquake Disaster. We built a multiple purpose cooking oven with Pechka function to it. We are now building out Permaculture design from near targets at gentle pace.
Production team
Producer / Director : Riko Hirata
Permaculture Designer, California State Ciertified Counselor
KUJIKA
http://kujika.jp
Design : Toru Hatanaka
Farmer / Graphic Designer / Curry maniac
Grows Rice at Rice terraces in Kamogawa, Chiba Japan
http://www.so-kurashi.com/
WEB：MICHIO YAMASHITA
Produced by Permaculturists’ Network
