Nature is King

With the recent events in Japan, it is clear to see that we humans are not as powerful as we think we are and that nature has far more hold over us than we care to think about.

I returned to the UK a week ago and missed the erthquake by a few days. Some people have told me how lucky I am but I feel the opposite, guilty for not being there to help the people I care about clean up and cope with the aftermath. Power cuts, food shortages and the threat of the unknown. These things put Bonsai into perspective and show how unimportant it is, yet at the same time how very important it is to protect.

From Bonsai we can learn many things about life and death, the eternal struggle between the two and how relentless it is. I has an email from a Japanese friend who told me how happy she was to see new shoots forming on a tiny maple seedling she recieved from the Chief. Looking at that gave her power and hope. Despite all the death and destruction that has taken place in the North East of Japan, despite the panic and uncertainty of Tokyo, despite her powerlessness...nature still continues regardless.

Many people have emailed me asking after the Chief and other Bonsai people. As far as I know the worst affected is the young Bonsai artist Isao Omachi, who was from that coast line. He and his family are safe but his life and work have been totally destroyed. Marco Invernizzi who is a close friend of Omachi's is setting up a relief fund, you can find details on facebook. I will post more details here when I speak with Marco. Thank you all for your concern and thoughts. At times like this, friends and genuinely good hearted peopl become apparent.

Shunkaen and the Chief escaped relatively lightly. The stone laterns fell over, a few bonsai damaged, a few pots broken but nothing of note. Everybody is shaken but unhurt. Morimae is in a similar situation, everyone is ok and there is some superficial damage.

It will be a long time before the full extent of the damage become aparent and what this means for us humans...however, life goes on relentlessly. This is the nature of the universe. More details as I know them.

Hasu no hana

Hasu no hana

Apologies for the lack of updates for anybody excited by the Kokufu results, as you can probably guess, they were nothing special. We got a 50% record across the board, which was in retrospect, not that surprising. After the drunken and angry exploits of last year, I was not that bothered afterwards, in fact the night of the judging was spent at a party at the house of pro golfer Jumbo Ozaki, who was a Bonsai enthusiast and is still on good terms with the Chief. We went along to his place and after some food and a few beers the Karaoke started and after a few turns somebody put Queen on. Needless to say I was called up to the floor where I then proceeded to belt out a number complete with dancing in a Freddie Mercury style, grinding against the mike stand and all sorts of tomfoolery. Most people (who had absolutely no idea who I was) were amazed. Bearing in mind I am tone deaf and have no singing ability whatsoever, I am surprised that people didn’t boo me off the stage. I made such a hit that I was then constantly on the dance floor and impressed with my robot dance…from 1984. The Chief was over the moon with me and spent the whole car ride home reliving the experience. Jumbo was so happy he invited me to the next party. Life as a Bonsai apprentice has some surreal moments.

There was much better news for one exhibitor though, for the second year running, there will be one of Doug Pall’s trees in the show. Absolutely nothing to do with me or the Chief, but congratulations are very much in order. The rest of the world is catching up with the Japanese, especially as they ease their foot off the pedal. There will also for the first time be a Rosemary displayed as a main tree. Several years previously one was used as the second tree in a Chuhin display, but this is the first time (to my knowledge) that one is being used as the main tree. Before the judging happens, a list of species and numbers put up for judging is released and I was very excited to see that one was being put in for consideration. On the day of setting up I was eager to see it as the Rosemary is a species close to my heart. I will let the public be the judge of the tree when they see it.

Noelanders was a great show by all accounts, Ryan’s demo and his naturally humble and enthusiastic demeanour excited everybody and I have had many mails from my customers saying that he was the best thing they have ever seen…says a lot about my work then I guess. I am genuinely pleased for him as he deserves it and he is one of the few people who can dispel the myths that surround Bonsai. He can show the Japanese that Bonsai can be done to a high level from scratch outside of Japan, he can show Americans that there is another way to do Bonsai and he can show Europeans that American Bonsai can become something to admire. The smashing of boundaries and long established ways of thinking are essential if Bonsai is to survive and grow. People need to understand that at the end of the day they are just beautiful little trees in pots.

Other things that are consuming my time other than one particularly annoying customer, keeping the lads on the straight and narrow and working on the occasional tree is the various media appearances that have been coming our way of late. Last month we did five hours of filming, which turned into 2 minutes on the Nikkei program which is broadcast on various channels across the globe. The other day I did an interview for some magazine and tomorrow we are filming a program for NHK which will be broadcast tomorrow morning. The main theme of the piece is how the popularity of Bonsai outside of Japan should be making the Japanese take another look at their own culture. They want to show how a foreigner is teaching Japanese kids their own culture. I have thought long and hard about how I feel about this…is it patronising, is it typically Japanese, are they just looking at the funny foreigner who thinks he is a native and having a laugh?

During the interview today and the discussions we had leading up to the filming of tomorrows program I discussed the fact that an apprenticeship is not about learning techniques and skills, it is about learning how to think and behave in the way that is necessary to do Bonsai at the highest level. It is more about human relationships than it is about wiring techniques and styling. The conversations with the lads have revealed a lot, they are not as stupid as they appear, especially Naganuma-kun, who is now into his fourth year. He is not a natural Bonsai stylist, not originally from within the Bonsai world and he has his own ideas about life and how it should be approached. This often leads to suffering and a tongue lashing from the chief but he is fact quite intelligent and incisive in his observations, describing life in Shunkaen as Dostoevskian

One particular conversation led me to the understanding of the importance of the lily flower and its beauty and significance in the Buddhist world. Growing up towards the light from the dark, dirty and stagnant depths of a pond is the slim and slender flower stalk, bending and flexible in the water. Once the bud opens with such force it is audible, the most pure and beautiful white flower floats above the surface of the water. If that isn’t a metaphor for life I do not know what is.

Bon-anza

A trying few days at Shunkaen has once again revealed the nature of life and death to me, giving me an insight into the hearts of those around. We often talk of dead wood, shari and jin but how many of us actually stop to think and contemplate what that actually stands for. No matter what nature throws at a tree, no matter how severe and harsh the conditions become, somehow it finds a way to survive. In difficult times, it pays to take time with your trees and to take strength from them.

However, that is an aside to what has been taking up most of my time recently. The Bon in both the title of this post and BON-sai refers to the pot. One of the two characters used to write the word means pot, so by that logic, 50% of the image and importance of a pot, comes from the container it planted in. This is one part of the more traditional side of Japanese Bonsai that I particularly enjoy, and one sadly that is disappearing at an alarming rate.

Due to the political situation in China way back when, many of their items of cultural heritage were destroyed in the revolution. Thankfully the Japanese had been shipping Bonsai pots and other ceramics, tables and whathaveyou for the previous hundred odd years. This means that the best examples of Chinese Bonsai pottery were in Japan...not any more. With their growing economic might, the Chinese are bulk buying their heritage back at an alarming rate, meaning that Japanese Bonsai heritage is fast disappearing. As much as this may be disappointing for some, it is the nature of the world. As a result The Chief is getting a lot of interest from the Chinese to sell many of his masterpieces.

Over the Kokufu period we are having what amounts to a garage sale...but of a bit higher class. The Chief put an advert in Kinbon saying that we had over 1000 antique Chinese pots. I doubted we had that many but after spending three days pulling them all out of the various hiding places we have for them, it has left in no doubt whatsoever. Naganuma described it as "making him feel queasy when he looked at them".

What was good for me though was meeting many of the pots again for the first time in a few years. Every pot that came out had memories attached to it. I can remember what tree was in which pot, the time it went to Kokufu, the customer who owned it previously....there were a few very special friends, and a few that I wished were still mine!

Along with setting up the pots, I have also been helping some Italian friends and customers to find special pots for their trees. It is reassuring to know that there are people out there willing to spend a little more money to find something that is worthy of the high quality trees that are around in Europe and the US at the moment. Without wishing to sounds as if I am snake-oil salesman, the prices of a decent aged Tokoname pot or a semi-antique Chinese pot are not really that much more than you will pay for a new Chinese pot at some places in Europe. If following the Japanese ideas of Bonsai then surely it is important to pay equal attention to the pot. If following a more European or American idea, such as using a native tree in a native pot, then the same rules apply. Thankfully there are many great potters out there who specialise in bespoke pots, in the UK we have both John Pitt and Andy Stone Monkey Pearson for a start. Either way is fine, the point I am making that as we are rounding the corner into spring and repotting season...maybe it is time for an image change.

Anyway...things cntinue on. I have a few days to get our scant number of trees ready for the Kokufu. One is a Kicho Bonsai (Important Masterpiece) so it should get in anyway, the others....well we shall see.

Into the blue...

Look at me...blogging regularly and everything! This week has been as always, full of fun and excitement. On Tuesday I went to a Satsuki auction with the remit from the Chief (who was in China) to buy anything on his tab. I bought wisely, also picking up things for myself for customers here who wanted smaller trees. I also managed to　finally get a pot for an Italian customer who had been patiently waiting for something of the correct size to come up.

Needless to say, all of the things I had bought for the Chief were WRONG! I was describing them to him in the car on the way home from the airport and without even seeing them he was tearing me a new one so to speak. It now turns out that I was not buying for him, but rather have to now pay for a lot of azaleas myself. Thankfully the ones I did get are saleable and hopefully will go at the Kokufu sales area. If not then I may have to work longer than I expected.

I did buy a beautiful little tree for myself, hoping to make it and display it in a few years, however, one of the old hands here took a shine to it. Uematsu-san, a man who has taught me that even as you reach 80, it is still possible to work like a trooper, play like a sailor and have a laugh and a joke while you are at it. He comes almost every day and sits, drinks tea, makes fun of us but is always looking out for the apprentices. A kind word at exactly the right time and sharp wit and dirty talk at all other times.

The tree in question is an Aozora shohin/chuhin sized araki (fresh from the field). I love Aozora, not just the flowers, but the word itself. It means Blue Sky, or rather the brilliantly deep and shimmering azure sky that you get in the late winter early spring in Japan.Both the word and the sky have a freshness and a sense of new beginning about them. The song, Kaze wo Atsumete by a bunch of 70’s Japanese hippies, featured in (the terrible) film “Lost in Translation” kind of sums it up perfectly, longing to soar into the empty blue sky.

Back to earth, the tree was soon marked as sold before I even had the chance to try and persuade him to take one of the others. Still, we made an agreement that I would work on it whenever I came back and in that way it would remain my tree (kind of). Being a good friend and having received plenty of unwanted pots and much appreciated good advice in the past, I let him have it for a little more than I paid for it, and included the styling and repotting.

Styling a satsuki araki is getting a balance of not cutting off too much foliage and creating the absolute base framework from which the rest of the tree can be created. Araki are generally made in one of two ways, literally in the field or in growing beds of Kanuma soil. Some are trees which are initially styled in pots and then placed in growing beds to thicken up. When they are collected they are full strength and have enough power to be seriously pruned back and bare rooted, root washed and potted up at the same time. The one point to be careful with is to ensure that there is enough pulling power in the branches, by that I mean foliage at the tips, to create the desire for roots. With a pot grown Satsuki that has a fine root system it is possible to complete defoliate, prune back to branch stumps and expect it to bounce back immediately. With an araki that will have almost no fine roots, there is the worry that the engine won’t start and it will not get started in the spring. Leaving foliage, even if it is unwanted in the final design, will give the initial kick start to start growth at both ends. Once roots have established, new shoots have sprouted it is then possible to cut back to the desired shape. So with that in mind, I removed some of the major branches, many of the smaller branches and created the basic shape. It is not advisable to wire initially, particularly as there will be another serious prune back in the next year. The first year after this process should be devoted to pure growth, both on top and below.

The main branch placement was good, the bend in the trunk is a little forced and unnatural but that can be hidden or helped by the foliage placement. A lot of work still needs to be done, the first branch on the left needs to be seriously cut back and remade from a shoot coming from the underside of the branch. Apart from that there was not much to worry about as the material was good. 90% of creating a good Bonsai is choosing the correct material, the other 9% is horticultural ability, the last 1% is artistic and technical ability. The most important thing is to choose a good starting point, for most people, you cannot make a silk purse out of a sows ear. I have made a few silk purses into sows ears though...

I have full pictures of the repotting which I will make a mini article out of, once the time presents itself. Anyway, the tree turned out well and although I wanted to keep it, both me and Ue-san are happy with the outcome and it gives us an excuse to continue our slightly bizarre friendship.

The future of Bonsai

Over the last few weeks being back in Japan, I often think about the path I have taken, sometimes coming back here feels like a backwards step. Once you have become your own boss and can wake up at 10 am and watch some TV before pottering around the garden, it is difficult to then get up again at 6 and get shouted at for something that you didn't do. Still, it isn't a backwards step, I am still learning many things, some of which not directly related to Bonsai at all.

One thing that has been apparent to me is the lack of cooperation between professionals in the west which is something that came as a bit of a shock to me. In Japan although there are rivalries and affiliations to bear in mind, there is a sense of togetherness and helping each other in the pursuit of making a living from Bonsai. If I have a customer that wants a tree from another professional and I push him towards buying it, then the seller will be grateful and give something back and not necessarily in monetary form, it maybe that he then intorduces a customer to me or lets me have a tree at a discounted price. I myself try to continue in this spirit and I hope that comes across to those I deal with. It seems counter productive to consider everybody as a rival when everybody has a different set of skills or aesthetic eye to bring to the table.

One fellow professional who I would very much like to help out (although he doesn't need it) is the man of the moment, Ryan Neil.

We spent a lot of our apprenticeship years in Japan at the same time, although I was a couple of years ahead and had been through the difficult patches of dealing with the Japanese system and mindset of a traditional Bonsai garden, so when we could meet secretly I was able to advise him on how to ignore the bad bits and focus on the good bits. In return, he would get me drunk and thenmake sure I got on the train home.

Now he is back in the US and starting to build his empire on a hill top in Oregon, just outside Portland in a town rather amusingly named Warren. I was lucky enough to visit him before we both went to the GSBF conference in October last year adn was amazed at what he had built so quickly. It puts me to shame...but then our objectives in life are different so it doesn't pay to compare yourself against others. His vision for Bonsai is pure and totally ego-free and he approaches it wtith a pure heart which is thoroughly refreshing. Obviously his skills are phenomenal having spent six years at the feet of Kimura, the only westerner to have done such a feat. There are not that many Japanese that have made it either.

Next weekend he will be headlining at Noelanders, so any of you lucky enough to be going, watch and learn all you can. Buy him a beer afterwards as well.

What is the reason for this outpouring of bromance? His new website has opened and go take a look.

The Chief is in China now for a few days so I can get down to some Bonsai work, I have a few trees of my own to work on, bought for a Kinbon photoshoot, but then the Chief trumped my paltry purchases and got me a humongous Juniper to work on (he wanted the pot). I will clean them up and put them up here.

The future of Bonsai is, like our trees, what we make of it. With the right heart, the right instruction and the right trees, there is no reason why our Bonsai future cannot be bright.

Happy New Year

Once again a month has passed since I last wrote and so as a late christmas present and a celebration of the new year,here are some pictures for you. One is of my favourite ume, the other is one of my favourite stones which has just had a new daiza made for it by Suzuki Koji.

As per usual at this time of year I am back in Japan,this time with incredible sinus problems and the feeling that I am not as young as I used to be. It is always a busy time of year as we have an exhibition on here, a celebration of the new year for all our customers. Everybody comes along and says hello so we are constantly entertaining and trying to find new trees and pots for people who have new plans for their new years bonus!

Kokufu is around the corner so I have been working on a few of the trees for that, thankfully we are not putting too many in and they are in a good condition anyway so there is not too much to do there. The location is changing this year and the number of exhibits is slightly down, so we have decided to not try any trees that are on the borderline of being accepted. Tomorrow Kinbon is coming to do a photoshoot on a tree that Valentin will be working on, he is the german apprentice who is featured in this months issue of Bonsai Focus. He is leaving in a few months after three years here. Due to immigration problems he was unable to complete the five years that is commonly required but he is a good lad and has come on very well. I look forward to working with him in Europe in the future. As I am the senior apprentice I will now have someone to carry my bags!

Anyway, enough...please enjoy the pictures. I should try to make a gallery page...but.... Happy New year and I hope all your Bonsai wake up in the spring!

Shows and no snow...

After what seems like another age has past, I am back from a very busy period in Japan which took in four different exhibitions, a lot of work, meeting some new additions to the family and the worst cold I have had all year.

One of the reasons I went to Japan at this time of year was to see the Taikanten exhibition held in Kyoto. It was rumoured to be the last one ever due to the ending of the current sponsorship deal; this however turned out to not be true and it will be on next year. Still, I had kept the time free in my diary and told the Chief that I might be going over, which means I am going over. I flew over to Kansai airport, arrived at 5pm and was out drinking with some customers by 8.15. The pace did not relent from there.

The exhibition itself was a disappointment, there was a distinct lack of effort on the part of the professionals charged with preparing the trees for the show and I fear for the future of the show. Sadly this is becoming a common trend throughout Japanese Bonsai and due to the current economic climate, belts are being tightened and exhibitions are suffering as a result.

Other than this, my two days in Kyoto were enjoyable; I spent an afternoon with Mr. Morimae at the Choseki-kai Suiseki show and helped to clear up. The autumnal colours in Kyoto were beautiful this year due to a sudden drop in temperature and it was said to have been the best in many years. The crowds were testament to this and it was impossible to move around at times.

One of the other reasons for returning back was to also to be part of the Sakkafu-ten exhibition, the show for professionals, which was held at the Green Club in Ueno at the start of December. My senpai Akiyama-san won the prize for the best Azalea in show for the fourth time, equalling the number of times won by another Shunkaen graduate, the late Kawakami Mitsuhiro. Although the Chief is no longer a member of the professional’s union and does not display at the show, we still had a sales table there and were part of proceedings. The sales were pretty good due to one or two customers who bought some Japanese pots, which are seemingly unfashionable at the moment.

At the same time as the Sakkafu-ten, the annual exhibition of the Sakka Kyokai was held at the newly opened Omiya Bonsai Art Museum. This show is called the Sakka-ten…it all gets a bit difficult when they all sound the same, but they were very different shows. One had a tree by me in it, the other didn’t. I didn’t realise I was a member of the Japanese Sakka Kyokai until three days before the show when the Chief said, “So what are you going to display then?” Unbeknown to myself he had enrolled me and paid my dues in absentia , making it an obligation to show a tree. It made me smile because I had been enquiring about joining the European branch of the same association and the membership requirements are very difficult for a travelling professional such as myself…still perhaps I have found a back door?

Once the bomb had been dropped that I had to display something, the question was what? The Chief suggested I put some moss on a tree that had just come into the garden and was in a displayable state but I was not happy with the idea of displaying something which I had not worked on and was not a tree I would personally own myself. There was one tree in the garden which I had begun work on almost four years ago, a cascade red pine which was very much to my taste. I remember it arriving at the garden around this time of year and wishing that I could buy it. The tree needed a little work on it, but that was mainly branch removal and nothing too serious. It had a superbly flowing trunk line and ancient branches with bark developing on some of the secondary branches. At first glance it was a difficult tree with far too many branches and it had also been made back to front in my opinion, however I took it upon myself to try and find an understanding customer and convince him of my plans. One of the difficulties being a poor bonsai artist is affording the material to create beautiful trees. As with any art, it is essential to find a patron who can in effect sponsor you, so that you make beautiful trees together.

Thankfully there was one such man, Tanaka-san from nearby Yokohama. He was part of a group of ten or so Bonsai enthusiasts who came regularly to the garden and I became very friendly with most of them. Another one of the members was Murata Hideo, who was the owner of the literati red pine which I styled for a Bonsai Focus photo shoot; so it is obvious that we all shared a similar eye and taste in trees. This was not the case with this tree as it created a decisive split in the group. Walking around the garden with a few of the group I showed the tree to both Murata-san and Tanaka-san and asked them what they thought. I said that I had been looking long and hard at the tree and couldn’t decide which face to make the tree from. This was a little bit of a white lie but it got the ball rolling and it is essential for a young apprentice to not be too bold and brash with their ideas. Here the pair disagreed with Murata-san saying keep the present front, which was the easiest way to make the tree; and Tanaka-san saying reverse the tree and work the foliage in such a way so as to accentuate the crank in the branch which creates the apex.

Working on the friendly rivalry between the two of them, I asked Tanaka-san if he would purchase the tree and let me work on it for him. To my surprise he said yes and the deal was made. Sadly my vision for the future involved half as many branches as Tanaka-san and a compromise was struck. Here again is one of the problem areas of working on a customer’s tree as a younger artist, sometimes you need to wait for the owner to see what you see in it and come to the conclusion that it is correct to remove that branch. Once you have gained their trust, then most people give you a free hand to do as you please but I was not at that stage then. The tree was wired up and styled to Tanaka-san’s liking and we were all happy. I worked on it another two times during my time at the garden and it progressed very well. After I left, the candle cutting was done poorly on one branch which weakened it (thankfully it was one which needed to be removed) but apart from that it continued to progress as it should do.

When the Chief asked me to show a tree that was the only one I had a strong connection to and so I called Tanaka-san to ask him if it was ok to display the tree under my own name. He was over the moon that I had asked him and said yes; he also said yes to my request to “perhaps prune one or two branches”. With only a few days before the show, I worked long into the night to achieve the image that I wanted to with the tree, one which achieved a good balance between foliage mass and trunk thickness, one which showed off the beautiful and natural lines of the trunk but more importantly one which showed off my interpretation of Bonsai.

From the rough and shaggy starting point I removed several branches including the weaker branch half way down the cascading branch and the front pointing branch in the apex. Both of these allow the viewer to see the trunk line and the apical trunk section much more clearly. The branches removed from the apex give it a much lighter feeling and a bit more direction. I spent about 8 hours in total preparing the tree, most of which was spent plucking the right number of old needles off so as to achieve a good balance over the whole tree. If this is done without thought and the same number are removed per branch throughout the whole tree, then the bottom always looks weaker than the top.

I only put four pieces of almost invisible wire on the tree in order to achieve the style I wanted. It would have been very easy to have wired out the whole tree and arranged the branches in a well organised and rounded foliage pad with a nice, flat bottom. This does not appeal to me however and I went for a much more natural style. Natural should not be misread as untidy or unkempt; it takes a good number of hours of touching to make it look so untouched. The chief is not a big fan of this style when putting a tree on display as it is difficult for the general public to understand as it can be misread as lack of effort, however he had the good grace to allow me the freedom to do as I pleased.

The exhibition was put on in one of the classrooms at the Bonsai museum in Omiya. It wasn’t the greatest location but it was an attempt to support the new museum which Yamada-san (the chairman of the Sakka Kyokai) was a big part of helping to become reality. We turned up and built some staging out of plywood boards and plastic beer cases. The rest of the morning was spent arranging the trees which we had brought along.

Part of the requirement for displaying is to spend a day at the show and offer information and explanation to the visitors. I went down the day after the Sakkafu-ten had finished and spent a day surprising people that not only could I speak Japanese but also I had a tree on display. I had telephoned Tanaka-san to ask him to come and visit which he did. Thankfully he was happy with the decisions I had made and approved of the tree. The other visitors were varied including a screen writer who wants to make a Bonsai movie, several young ladies and lots of older gentleman who asked my advice on everything from Black pine candle cutting to spraying for leaf mite on Azalea. Needless to say I had fun and it once again showed me the reason for doing bonsai and for spending 6 hours plucking old needles, driving for hours and lifting 26 beer cases and 10 plywood boards up a flight of stairs. An appreciative public make the difference and even if they do not know anything about Bonsai, most people can see the effort that gets put into the act of display.

The last three days of my stay were the busiest, with every day beginning at 5 am and finishing after midnight for one reason or another. It didn’t help that I had been suffering from a cold for over two weeks and still had not cleared up, but the end of the road was in sight. Thursday, despite being a very long day was very enjoyable as it was the monthly auction at Morimae’s. There are always a good number of professionals there and it is a good way to pick up material, pots and all the gossip and rumours. Sadly, due to the poor exchange rate and my lack of funds, very little was purchased.

Although it was less than a month there, it was an intense time and I learnt a great deal. I feel it is always important to keep in mind the reasons why you do Bonsai and for me once again, this has been shown to me by the reactions of long standing customers who were happy to see me again and invited me over to work; and also the visitors to the exhibition, many of whom were seeing Bonsai for the first time.