THF Haiga Galleries: Haiga of Pamela A. Babusci
Pamela A. Babusci
The Haiku Foundation honors the work of contemporary masters of the dual art of haiga: visual image wedded to haiku. This month’s featured artist is Pamela A. Babusci.
Babusci was born in Rochester, NY into an Italian-American family surrounded by opera, classical music, art, books, and lots of food. She started writing poetry and painting in her early teens. In 1995 through her friendship with Kenneth Tanemura, Co-editor of the pioneering journal Five Lines Down, she was introduced to tanka, fell in love with the form, and has been writing it ever since.
She is an internationally award-winning haiku/tanka and haiga artist. She loves to sumi-e paint, write Japanese calligraphy, abstract paint, make jewelry, sculpt, and assemble collages. Some of her awards include the Museum of Haiku Literature Award, International Tanka Splendor Awards, First Place Mainichi Haiku Award (Japan), First Place Tanka Yellow Moon Competition (Aust), First Place Kokako Tanka Competition (NZ), First Place Saigyo Tanka Competition (US), First Place Inaugural Tanka Festival (Japan), First Place (tanka), San Francisco International Contest, First Place Mt. Fuji Tanka Contest (Japan), Jane Reichhold Haiga Contests. Pamela has illustrated several books and journals including Akitsu Quarterly, Full Moon Tide: The Best of Tanka Splendor Awards, Taboo Haiku, Take Five: Best Contemporary Tanka Volume 1, The Delicate Dance of Wings, Chasing the Sun: selected haiku from HNA 2007, A Thousand Reasons, In Sun, Snow and Rain: Tanka from a World of Song and pages from a tanka diary. She was the logo artist for Haiku North America in New York City in 2003 and again in Winston-Salem in 2007.
She has collaborated in several art galleries in Rochester, NY with oil painters Larry DeKock and Jono Peterson, where she has written tanka to complement their paintings. Pamela is the founder and editor of moonbathing: a journal of women’s tanka, the first all-women’s international, and is currently the founder and editor of: the art of tanka. tanka journal. Her three tanka collections are A Thousand Reasons, A Solitary Woman, and pages from a tanka diary.
Pamela considers herself a self-taught artist, poet, and sculptor. She has learned her artistic techniques through reading and studying art books, art demonstrations, or just experimenting. She started writing poetry in her early teenage years to cope with her dysfunctional family and to this day, writing tanka, poetry and making art helps with her ongoing healing. “Art isn’t something you master, but it’s a lifestyle one cultivates to open up and to be receptive to the creative process. One should always be free and willing to expose their heart, soul, and inner being in their art form. That in itself is the power of art.”
Poetry and art have been an integral part of her existence since her early teenage years. She has a deep desire to be creative on a daily basis. It feeds her spirit and soul, gives meaning to her life, and will continue to be a driving force until she meets her creator.
Feel free to contact her.
