Repotting The Imperial Pine

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The Imperial Japanese Red Pine (Pinus densiflora) at The National Bonsai and Penjing Museum. In training since 1795. Photo by Jonas Dupuich of Bonsai Tonight.

Rusty, are you out there?
I came across  a link to the article below in a post on Bonsai Tonight. The post is about the National Bonsai & Penjing museum. The link to the articled appears in the post’s comments by someone named Rusty. Unfortunately, Rusty didn’t give his last name (maybe someone out there knows who he is).

A complex task with a simple name
The article is entitled Repotting the Imperial Pine. It’s a great little story that is enhanced by some interesting photos. If you want to read it, here it is. I highly recommend it, but if it’s too much trouble, here’s an excerpt and a couple borrowed photos:

“As I was working on removing the soil from the rootball I would stop my work every few minutes and reflect on what I was doing and how many people have done the same task over the last 200 years. I kept thinking about how fortunate I was to be given this opportunity. How many amateur painters do you know who were invited to a Guggenheim to help with a restoration of a Rembrandt painting?”

imperialpineIs the trunk bigger than that man’s head? Is that man Rusty?

Continue reading Repotting The Imperial Pine

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What’s with Taiwan? Lo Min Hsuan (& Friends)

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A little change of pace. The tree on the right (Elaeagnus Pungens) has the mark of Min. At least the Lo Min Hsuan many of us have come to know. The lilac Crape myrtle in full bloom provides a touch of wildness, freedom and color. From the 2008 Taiwan Bonsai Creators Exhibition.

Look out for Taiwan
A friend of mine who is a computer engineer and often works in Taiwan with Taiwanese engineers, says that they are poised to rule the world (okay, a little  exaggeration), that many of them, especially the younger ones, are brilliant, fearless and wildly creative in an unconventional kind of way.***

Bonsai too
Though the Taiwanese aren’t alone, a large dose of creative bonsai energy seems to be emanating from that unique island. And it’s not just Lo Min Hsuan and Cheng, Cheng-Kung, they have plenty of talented company. If you want some evidence, check out the 2008 Taiwan Bonsai Creators Exhibition. There are plenty of other examples of Taiwanese bonsai, but the photos in this one are particularly good (to which the three in this post readily attest).

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I’m running out of superlatives. How about ‘somewhere north of magnificent.’  My only question is; could the pot be a little bigger? By Hsieh, Shun-Chin.

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Powerful, unique and full of movement, though knowing our audience, I imagine some may feel that the foliage is overly groomed. Premna microphylla by Yang, Chun-Cheng.

*** some of the English names the younger engineers have given themselves: Zinc, Purple, Pedro, Comet… you get the drift.

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This Time From Robert

XMas-Card

He’s not really that small! Bonsai wishes from Robert Steven; famous bonsai artist, author and teacher. Not too bad with photoshop either.


New Year 2011

Can you imagine Santa leaving you this tree?

Celebrate the New Year with Robert
Well, actually with his great bonsai books: Mission of Transformation and Vision of My Soul.


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Min Hsuan Lo’s Bonsai Teaser

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Most bonsai shots show the whole tree, though you sometimes see partial tree photos (teasers). In this case, the photo has no trouble communicating the power and character of this magnificent bonsai, even if it only shows a little more than half of the tree and completely excludes the pot.

All paths lead to Min Hsuan Lo
I found the photo on one of the numerous bonsai galleries on facebook. It wasn’t attributed, so I traced it though several other photo galleries and finally landed on Budi Sulisyo (bonsai artist and author). It’s not Budi’s tree, but he did attribute it to its rightful owner,  Min Hsuan Lo, a famous Taiwanese bonsai artist and teacher.

The value of teaser photos
Min Hsuan Lo’s photo gallery of this tree show a series of partial-tree shots. The value of these shots is that each one emphasizes details that you might otherwise miss. In the the whole-bonsai photo below, you see a magnificent powerful bonsai. When eyes linger for awhile, some of the larger details stand out: the beautiful pot, the powerful trunk that divides into several strong branches, the vibrant well-balanced crown and so forth. However, when you look at photo above, finer details stand out: the spaces between the lower left branches, the well-developed fine branching, individual surface roots, individual leaves and so forth. Understanding and appreciation of the tree has deepened.

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Here it is in all its world-class glory. Ficus microcarpa by Min Hsuan Lo.


B1TROP-COVER

Special
Tropical Bonsai by Budi Sulistyo
Speaking of Budi and tropical bonsai: Two hundred plus of some of the most powerful and exciting tropical trees in the world (including another extraordinary ficus by Min Hsuan Lo). Reg 35.00, Now 25.00 (actually lower with site-wide discounts).



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Some of the Very Best Bonsai in the World

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The trees are exquisite and so is the book.192 pages of some of the best bonsai in the world. This book, along with the first one and all the others to come, will surely become collector’s items.

We can lay that notion to rest
For a long time many of us wondered if North American bonsai was falling behind the rest of the world. Now we can lay that notion to rest. It turns out that what we were lacking was something the Japanese have had for a long time (the Europeans have had theirs for a while too); a single show with our best trees all in one place. That and the resulting book as evidence.

Who won?
I won’t spoil it for you, but I can tell you that nine awards were given out, including The National Award and the very distinctive Ho Yoku Award for the Finest Creative Western Formal Display. All the winners are great trees, but what strikes me is how many other equally great trees there are in the book. Just being chosen to show your bonsai is a honor and an award in itself.

The set
We still have some albums from the first show. When they’re gone, that’s it. Now you can buy the set and save. Combine this with our current volume discounts, and you’ll do very well.

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The set. Retail $130. Special $115 minus volume discount.

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Microscopic Bonsai: How Low Can You Go?

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I stumbled upon this the other day while mindlessly flitting though my daily facebook clutter. Here’s the caption that came with it: La foto de este bonsái pertenece al álbum de Kodachi Ken Senshi. He’s from Willemstad, the capital city of Curaçao.

It looks like a shrunken down Juniper, but it’s not
It’s a Pilea microphylla. They got the microphylla part right for sure. Its common name is Artillery plant. It’s a tropical ground cover that grows on Curaçao (an island in the southern Caribbean Sea that forms a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands) which is where Kodanchi Ken Senshi lives.

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Three Portulcaria afra (commonly called jade, but they’re not) and some ground covers on a rock. It’s a great rock and the overall feeling works. The way many of the nooks and crannies have been colonized by in-scale, small leafed ground covers (maybe it’s Pilea microphylla) creates a natural feel. The main tree fits the scale quite well, but the leaves on the other two Portulacaria seem a little large and clunky. With time and some judicious trimming, that’s easily corrected. Also by Kodachi Ken Senshi.

Continue reading Microscopic Bonsai: How Low Can You Go?

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Penjing & Bonsai: The Original Creators

98karinA magical Chinese elm penjing by Wang Huaishun. Did this creative landscape, and others like it, influence some of Kimura’s more daring innovations? Robert Steven’s too? From Bonsai Today issue 98. Submitted by Karin Albert.

Penjing in three parts
The Penjing above is the lead photo in a wonderful (and very well received) in-depth article entitled, Penjing: A Chinese Renaissance by Karin Albert, that appear in Bonsai Today issues 98, 101 and 102.

Following the buzz
There’s been a lot of buzz from Robert’s last critique a few posts back: Robert Steven Critiques a Black Pine and Offers Some Insights into the Five Schools of Penjing. So this seems like a good time to throw Karin’s insights into the mix.

A small taste to whet your appetite
“In bonsai literature we read that the literati style in bonsai is patterned after the way painters of China’s Southern School rendered their trees, indicating that at the time literati bonsai was conceived, but only in this one instance, bonsai artists were inspired by a particular genre of Chinese painting. This interpretation is much too narrow. In reality, China’s literati were the original creators of the entire art of miniature trees and landscapes, not just a segment. (this bold type does not appear in the original). Their influence was pervasive throughout.” From the second installment (China’s Literati: The Cultural Context of Penjing) of Karin Albert’s three part article Penjing, A Chinese Renaisssance. This second installment is from Bonsai Today issue 101.

A fair warning
We royally messed up the first installment of Karin’s masterpiece, due to moving too fast and taking our eye of the ball (that’s a baseball expression that has nothing to do with penjing). We printed a correction in issue 101, but the egg remains on our face, with issue 98 serving as a constant reminder.

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Landscape penjing. From the second installment (Bonsai Today issue 101) of Karin’s three part article.

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Bonsai Tonight with Boon & Peter Tea

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This heavy gnarly trunked Japanese black pine is from Bonsai Tonight. When Jonas took this photo, it had just been styled at a Bay Island Bonsai workshop by Peter Tea. It’s not clear if the tree is Peter’s or if it belongs to Boon (it’s not unusual for a student to work on a teacher’s tree), though I imagine that it’s Peter’s. We’ve now been informed the the tree belongs to Boon (see comments).

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Close up of the trunk.

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Closer up still. You could search for a long time and never stumble across a trunk as abundant in natural character as this one.

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The same tree in 2009 at a Bay Island‘s exhibit. If you look at the photo at the top of the post, you can see how Peter has reduced the foliage and opened the the tree up, allowing us to see a little more trunk and to get a better idea of the branch structure.

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Peter Tea and tree.

Visit Bonsai Tonight for the complete post and much more. And while I’m at it, apologies to Jonas Dupuich of Bonsai Tonight for the liberties I took in cropping a couple of his photos.

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