b'held in Chicago in the spring of 1974. It is not known if Makuuchi attended the conference in Chicago, although he participated in the second conference held in Madison in September 1974, for which the theme was Going Beyond Identity. Although he was quoted in an article about the second conference, it seems that Makuuchi was not deeply involved with the Asian American student movement. 51Asian American activism started later in the Midwest than it did on the West Coast, and it appears that the Madison group had a difficult time recruiting and retaining members. 52Rice Paper, which published only four issues, included a variety of poetry, art-work, articles, comics, and opinion pieces, and the stated editorial policy was anything submitted will be printed. Because there is no poetry by Makuuchi in the publication, it is unlikely that he was writing poems during this time period. It is clear, however, that he was starting to play with language by the early 1970s. In his MFA thesis and interviews during his graduate study in Madison, he had already begun to construct his own words, including symbiomatic, dwelving, and splitzoidal. 53It appears that Makuuchi was trying to merge his visual, aural, and philosophical experiences, and, not finding an accurate language to do so, he determined to construct his own. The underlying structure of Makuuchis work also began to change during this time period, and he tentatively began to explore working with color. While con-tinuing to make drypoints, Makuuchi was actively working on large-scale abstract paintings that combined soft stains of color with lattice-gridded overall patterns (fig. 22). These works incorporate color pencil and other media. These formal FIGURE \x0c\x0c Untitled, ca. 1972. Oil and colored pencil on canvas, size and whereabouts unknown. Image courtesy Jamie and Constance Makuuchi.FIGURE \x0cFickled Rainbowed Sexual WatersCHECKLIST #1641'