Mediocrity strikes back / New hope

Last Sunday, I visited the annual exhibition of the Bonsai Society of the Central Coast held at Gosford City Arts Centre. I’ve never been to their shows and this exhibition disappointed me. All trees were mediocre and uninspiring. Some trees were untidy and not properly prepared for the exhibition. Some trees exemplified bad horticultural practices. Some rather average trees were labeled as winners of past exhibitions, which indicated that the society rewards mediocrity.

To me the highlight of the visit was the Japanese garden outside the centre. It possesses a certain charm (see photos) and it has a tremendous potential for further refinement. The pavilion and the pond bridge are the star performers in the garden. It also features a nice tea-garden style arbour and a couple of decent stone lanterns. The most obvious area for improvement is the dry garden.

Termite factor

Last month, I visited Australian Northern Territory and was keen to see examples of naturally dwarfed plants in tropical savanna. It was a wet season, the time when many plants undergo a period of rampant growth. Very familiar young eucalypt trees boasted very unusual one-foot-long leaves. However, I did observe an unexpected natural force which can suppress plant growth even at this time of the year. Termites. The tree on the picture is stunted because it is virtually growing on a termite mound. Whenever any part of this tree dies due to heat, wind, insects, fungi, virus or bacteria it is immediately consumed by termites. I have a feeling that both the tree and the termite mound are quite old. From the trunk line we can see that its apex died back a few times and one of the side branches grew to be the new tree top.

Backyard clay

I had to dig a few holes in my backyard to put up a shade cloth frame over my bonsai shelves. The top soil layer was quite thin and underneath I found a very fine and pure brown clay. This is Wianamatta Shale clay characteristic to Sydney’s Cumberland Plain. I saved a small lump and used it to make a tea bowl shown in the picture. The shrinkage was nearly 30%, so the bowl turned out to be smaller than I expected. I fired it to earthenware temperature with clear glaze to preserve the original colour of the clay. The result was beautiful and quite similar to red raku ware (aka raku yaki). It also would have been not unlike the red clay ware (shudei) of Tokoname if it was burnished and not glazed.

The loveliest scenes of China

The most renowned Japanese poet Mitsuo Basho (1644-94) in his poem ‘The Unreal Dwelling’ extols a beautiful vista with pines and mountain wisteria and says: “I could not be but happy – the view would not have blushed before the loveliest scenes of China.” It suddenly struck me that by ‘the loveliest scenes of China’ Basho meant none other than the Huang Shan Mountains – the original inspiration for Chinese miniature landscapes and ultimately Japanese bonsai.

Australia Day Bonsai Exhibition

Yesterday, I saw Australia Day Bonsai Exhibition organised for the first time and held at Merrylands RSL, Sydney. Members of eight New South Wales bonsai clubs put up their trees for the exhibition. This sort of show never happened in Australia before. A national exhibition like Kokufu-ten in Japan or the US National Bonsai Exhibirion is impossible in Australia due to bio-security regulations enforced by the federal government. However, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and Western Australia could hold their state exhibitions right now, but for some reason don’t. Anyway, the standard of Australia Day Exhibition was better than at usual individual club shows. Below are some trees. All Australian natives: 1- Port Jackson Fig (≈ 90 cm), Banksia (≈ 50 cm) and Baeckea (≈ 30 cm). Picture 4 shows a suiseki from China.

Penching-like grapevine

Last winter I was visiting vineyards in Hunter Valley and was taken by the beauty of bare grapevine plants. They reminded me of the flat top penching trees characteristic of Yang School of Yangzhou. Some of them had amazing trunk movement with interesting dead wood like the one on the picture.

New tea bowl

A couple of weeks ago, I got a tea bowl which was thrown by Ian Jones, its foot was carved by me and then it was fired in Ian Jones’ anagama kiln. The tea bowl is alright, but I don’t get tired of saying that it was fired for 5 days with 20 tonnes of wood!

P. S. For more information about Ian Jones's studio see my blog post about it at http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2010/08/during-recent-trip-to-canberra-with.html

Tiny monster

Last month, I caught a 0.5 mm-long red mite on one of my fig bonsai. I assumed it is a pest and asked an expert to identify it. It turned out to be a predatory species Anystis baccarum which is actually beneficial to plants. It preys on plant eating mites. It’s amazing that just one bonsai tree can provide a whole universe for a tiny monster devouring plant pests we can’t even see. Unfortunately, the photograph of this mite mounted on a microscope slide doesn’t do it justice.

First pot made on potter's wheel

This is the first ceramic object I made on potter's wheel. It was thrown in August, but glaze fired only last week. The decoration was totally random. First, I scribbled Lotus Sutra in Japanese and than drew a butterfly with a flower in the remaining surface.

Bonsai metaphor by Shoji Hamada

Shoji Hamada (1894-1978) was a famous Japanese potter who worked within Japanese folk art tradition. In 1974 an American art teacher Susan Peterson wrote a book about him where she transcribes her conversations with Hamada. In the following passage Shoji Hamada talks about traditional art and uses bonsai as a metaphor:

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“In Mashiko and in Okinawa there are deep unconscious roots of tradition in the earth. For instance, compare dwarf trees in the garden and trees on the hill. If it’s a dwarf tree, when the weather gets a little bit bad you bring it in the house, if it gets dry you give it water. You trim the branches or not as you want. A traditional potter is like a dwarf tree. In the case of the [dwarf] tree you have to be careful about the weather, the other half depends on the care you give it. A tree in the mountains grows by itself. I should like to become such a tree.”

Trasformation in a wood-fired kiln

Last year, I made a little mame / kusamono pot which was fired in an electric kiln and turned out to be quite uninteresting (left picture). I put it in the reject box and forgot about it. A couple of weeks ago, I looked though the box for pieces that could be re-fired in a wood-fired kiln. The picture on the right shows the same pot after it was wood-fired.

P.S. For more info on wood-fired kilns see: http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2010/08/during-recent-trip-to-canberra-with.html

Pots thrown on a wheel

I am learning to make ceramics on potter’s wheel and these are first bonsai pots I threw on the wheel. The top picture shows a pot fired in an electric kiln and the bottom picture shows a pot with no glaze fired in a wood-fired kiln.

P. S. For a look at several wood-fired kilns see my blog post about them at http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2010/08/during-recent-trip-to-canberra-with.html

New Begining

................................................................................................................................. 

I finally got a new job!

It took 45 job applications

in a span of four years.

I hope it will invigorate

my scholarly and artistic pursuits.

Early history of bonsai in Russia

There were Russian settlements in China and Chinese settlements in Russia as early as late 17th century. By the end of the 19^th century there were tens of thousands of Russians settled in various parts of China. Some of them were fluent in Mandarin and exposed to various aspects of Chinese culture including penjing. For example, we know of a Russian railway official Alexander Koreshov who resided with his family in a government house in Harbin, Manchuria around 1912. The house had a garden with a collection of penjing and a Chinese gardener who looked after it. These penjing trees made such a deep impression on Alexander Koreshov’s son Vitaliy that after settling in Australia he went on growing bonsai for the rest of his life. He became the founder of the first bonsai club and the first bonsai nursery in that country. ...............................................................................................................................................................
1956 - State Publishing of Agricultural Literature publishes a book titled ‘Indoor Gardening’ which contains a section titled ‘Dwarf Plants’. The section is written by G. E. Kiselev and presents a somewhat distorted view about ‘dwarf plants’. The section is accompanied by four images. One of them shows a 25-year-old Deodar trained in Literati style and planted in a shallow round container. The plant belonged to A. A. Karpenko from Sochi (presently Republic of Georgia).
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1960’s – An article about bonsai in a popular science magazine ‘Nauka i Zhizn’ (Science and Life). The article contained images of high standard Japanese bonsai and raised awareness about this art in the Soviet Union.
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By the end of the 60’s Anatoliy Annenkov, landscape architect at the Nikitsky Botanic Gardens, Crimea and Soviet Union’s leading landscape architect, develops considerable skills in growing and styling bonsai. He was a gifted artist and horticulturist who communicated with bonsai enthusiasts from other countries and used to make his own bonsai pots.
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1976 – Japan presents Russia with a gift of 44 bonsai. The collection is housed in a subtropical glasshouse at the State Botanic Gardens of Academy of Sciences, Moscow. The curator of bonsai collection at that time is Tamara Belousova. This collection attracts a small group of bonsai enthusiasts which would form the core of bonsai community in Russia.
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1985 - Phyllis Argall’s book ‘Dwarf trees in the Japanese mode’ originally published in 1964 was translated and published in Russian. It was the first Russian language book which provided instructions for cultivating bonsai. It inspired many to take bonsai as a hobby.
........................................................................................................................................................................ 1988 – A group of bonsai enthusiasts who regularly met at the State Botanic Gardens in Moscow decides to form Russia’s first bonsai club.
......................................................................................................................................................................... 1989 – First bonsai exhibition held at the Japanese Garden of the State Botanic Gardens in Moscow.

Best wood-fired bonsai pot so far

I was really pleased with this wood-fired bonsai pot that came out of the kiln this month. It is probably this year’s best pot. It measures 27×23×7.5 cm. I am planning to replicate the success, but there is always an element of luck when it comes to wood firing.

P. S. For a look at several wood-fired kilns see my blog post about them at http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2010/08/during-recent-trip-to-canberra-with.html

Root graft: Trident Maple

Easy as 1-2-3, but will the tree survive?

If the graft is successful the nebari should look better in 2 years.

P. S. To see what this tree was three years ago, when I bought it, see the following entry: http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2007/10/natasha.html

First try on a potter's wheel

Yesterday, I tried to use potter’s wheel for the first time. After working on it for four hours, left palm of my hand was bruised. At times, clay felt like sandpaper. After a few failed attempts, I have thrown two forms that later will become a coffee mug and a small round bonsai pot. The teacher was very encouraging. The picture below shows a beautiful Moreton Bay Fig I saw on the way to ceramics class.

Japanese style wood-fired ceramic kilns

During a recent trip to Canberra with a group of potters I saw a number of Japanese style wood-fired kilns. Image below shows a two-chambered noburigama kiln at Sturt Pottery in Mittagong.

This pottery also has two anagama kilns. The image below left shows the longer anagama, while the image below right shows the front of the small anagama.

We also visited Old St Luke's Studio in Gundaroo owned by ceramic artist Ian Jones. He built a nine-meter-long anagama kiln shown in the image below left. This kiln is fired for five days and it takes twenty tonnes of pine wood. The other kiln at this studio is a one-chambered noburigama shown in the image below right.

My first Kokufu-ten album

I finally got my first Kokufu-ten album! Another “boring” coffee-table book avoided by the rest of my family. It is this year's issue No 84. A couple of observations I would like to share. First, the trees looked more interesting and impressive in real life. Second, the album allows a quick glance at the exhibition and enables us to see general trends. Many trees at Kokufu-ten exhibit ancient maturity and suggest an awe-inspiring length of time and the amount of labor it took to produce them. At the same time, such trees may lack artistic individuality. Look through the album and you will find trees that are almost identical to each-other. Is it a “bonsai copied from another bonsai” situation encouraged by the abundance of mass-produced advanced stock? I still love the book and keep going over my favorite trees.

Jeff Mincham's teabowls 2009

Last weekend,
I saw an exhibition
of ceramic art
by Jeff Mincham
at Watson Arts Centre
near Canberra.
I especially liked
this triptych
of teabowls:
1 - Morning Glory,

2 - Bitter Winds,

3 - Survival.

They would make

perfect three cups of

tea for a tea ceremony

complementing an exquisite teahouse.

Sakui

Yamanoue Sōji (1544-90) a tea master and an important chronicler of tea history of his time, once made a remark about a fellow tea practitioner Tsuji Gensai: “Tsuji is not sharp-eyed, and very poor at chanoyu. Even if he becomes the pupil of a great master, a man without sakui remains inept.” Sakui can be translated as ‘creative mind’. I could really identify with this sentiment in my last bonsai class when I asked the teacher: “How can I improve the nebari of this tree?” and before the teacher could say anything his assistant asked: “What’s wrong with this nebari?” I was glad that the teacher just ignored his question and proceeded to tell me what can be done.

1956: First known mention of dwarf plants in Russian horticultural literature

Thanks to the links in the web site of Phoenix Bonsai Society I stumbled across an interesting passage from a Russian book. Apparently, it is the first known mention of bonsai/penjing in Russian literature. Here is the passage translated to English:
“Dwarf plants are miniature copies of pines, cryptomerias and other trees and shrubs. Dwarf plants are used for creating beautiful miniature landscapes on flower tables. Occasionally, pines, spruces, junipers, rhododendrons and other trees and shrubs grow for decades on mountain cliffs in rock crevices in nutrient-poor soil. Their growth is often measured in centimetres. At present, such plants have become difficult to obtain. Despite the dangers of dwarf plant ‘hunting’ (they grow on vertical cliffs, ravines, rock outcrops, e. g.) they have become rare in nature. For this reason dwarf plants are now grown artificially. There are various methods for achieving small size in plants. The smallest seeds of a cultivated variety are chosen. The seeds are sown in thimble-sized containers with low nutrient compacted soil. The plant is watered just enough to be kept alive. This way, plants are kept weak and develop very slowly. However, the plant growth is reduced even further. The plants are mutilated. The tap root is severed and main trunk is replaced with a side branch. Side branches are regularly pruned, bent, curled and coiled. As a result of practicing these techniques for prolonged periods of time, the plants become ugly and small. Dwarf plant care is aimed at stunting their normal growth, while keeping them alive. Do not keep dwarf plants in warm indoors for too long. Cool environment similar to the conditions in the wild is more suitable for them. Fertilisers are never used. Watering is very limited and carried out just to keep the plants alive. Plants which can be cultivated in dwarf form include pines, spruces, cryptomerias, junipers, rhododendrons, quinces, birches, ornamental apple varieties, maples, bamboos and others.”
Unfortunately the reference is incomplete and goes like this: Kiselev G. E. 1956. Dwarf Plants. In: ??? (Eds) Indoor Gardening. State Publishing of Agricultural Literature, Moscow. p. 278. The author was obviously not a bonsai practitioner and chose not to use the term ‘bonsai’ or ‘penjing’. The passage fails to mention China or Japan as countries where growing of dwarf plants was originally practiced. The passage also contradicts itself: “ugly” plants are used to create “beautiful” landscapes.

Demonstration by Salvatore Liporace

Last weekend I went for a demonstration by Salvatore Liporace from Italy. I anticipated a demonstration with dramatic transformation of a tree involving unusual styling and dead wood carving. Well, there was none of that. Below is the before and after photos of the tree he styled.

It will take a few years for this tree to become something nice, provided the jin is carved adequately. The demonstration went on a tangent wiring lesson. He said that he takes great care to make wired trees to look good, because he may sell or exhibit them with the wire on. So, he uses copper wire for conifers and doesn't use wire gauges thicker than 4.5 mm. He wires two branches with one strand of wire as much as possible not to have too many wire ends and has all wire ends at the back of the tree. It also allows to use less wire. It is not uncommon to put a kilogram of wire on a 70-cm-tall tree and the cost of wire in Italy is higher than in Australia ($70). He bends the branch first than wires it, so that the wire holds it nice and tight. Unlike all bonsai books say, he wires at an angle a little wider than 45°. A branch he wired as example is shown below.

He also explained a new method for achieving ramification in five-needle pines and demonstrated interesting grafting tecniques for junipers. To make it worse for the people who expected just bonsai entertainment, Liporace said some “harsh words” about the standard of bonsai in Australia and excuses we make about the lack of suitable and aged plant material. He said that we are satisfied with little and I absolutely agree with that. How many times I came from a bonsai exhibition disappointed! He noted that, when bonsai first took off in Italy, they were importing a lot of trees from Japan and China and it took them a while to realise that the local material is as good. Apennine Mountains with their rocky volcanic soils have a lot of excellent bonsai material and now Italian trees are valued higher than the imported ones. He also mentioned that the average size of bonsai trees in Italy is decreasing. If a few decades ago thickness of the trunk to tree height ratio was 1:6, now it is 1:4.

Since selling bonsai is Liporace’s bread and butter, he can’t afford to waste time on redesigning trees. The tree design is decided on right from the time of collection with the aim to get the tree to exhibition standard within 5 years. Things he said made me realise that Europe is becoming like Japan when it comes to bonsai. There is a growing number of people who practice or at least appreciate bonsai. Lots of local and imported plant material. It is common for someone to pay three or four figure price for a bonsai. There are wealthy people who just own bonsai trees and have bonsai practitioners work on them. Liporace said that it costs €200-300 to style a larger tree and it is not unheard of to spend around €1000 to get a tree ready for an exhibition. Customers show him their tree and he gives them a quotation. Large number of bonsai organizations, exhibitions, nurseries and auctions provides bonsai practitioners with lots of things to do. Nothing of the sort exists in Australia, with its small market for bonsai and relatively small number of bonsai enthusiasts.

Forest planting by Saburo Kato?

Bonsai master Saburo Kato was well known for his forest plantings. When I visited Mansei-en nursery in Omiya, which was owned by him, I saw several forest plantings, but was really impressed by the one on the picture. Could it be a bonsai done by Saburo Kato?

P.S. For more info on this forest planting see: http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2011/12/saihate-no-oka-by-saburo-kato.html).

For more info on Mansei-en see: http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2012/08/mansei-en-saburo-kato-and-forest.html.

Kencho-ji junipers, Kamakura

When I visited Kencho-ji temple in Kamakura, I was really impressed by magnificent juniper trees growing along the temple’s main alley. They looked like some sort of Chinese Juniper and one of them had a trunk about four meters in diameter (photo on the left). I took some photos, wandered about how old they are and forgot about them. Two months later I was reading about Kencho-ji and found that these junipers were actually planted by the founder of the temple Chinese Zen master Lan-hsi Tao-lung between 1253 and 1278 from seeds brought from China.

Bilpin Plant Collector’s Fair 2010

Today I went to the Plant Collector’s Fair in Bilpin. Even though the fair mostly caters to people who want unusual flowers in their garden, I couldn’t resist buying a bunch of them (see the picture). I really enjoyed it and it was definitely worth the trip. As far as bonsai is concerned, the fare may have some rare kinds of plants which could be used as bonsai starter stock. For instance, I picked up a small Bird Cherry. Something I wanted, but never thought would find in Australia. Anyway, if you want to get the best and the least common plants at this fair - get there in the morning of the first day.

Not too much wire?

Ever since I started doing bonsai I was hesitant to wire plants too much. I just had a self-made supposition that wire suffocates the plant. My trip to Japan helped me to overcome this prejudice after seeing wired plants like the one on the picture. I realised that a lot of beautiful bonsai I’ve seen in Japan, had to be subjected to extensive wiring to become what they are today.

Paper published!

Today my paper on plant reproductive success in restored habitats is accepted for publication! My very first blog entry made five years ago mentions me doing the lab work for this paper. Also, an entry made in October 2008 features a drawing that’s going to be in it (I like that drawing!).

Tengo-an tea house

While visiting Tokyo National Museum I took a picture of a view through a window. A few weeks later, I was reading a museum brochure and realised that I actually took a picture of a tea house built more than 300 years ago by Kobori Enshu, one of the most prominent tea masters of Edo period. Although Tengo-an is not his most famous tea house it is exquisite and imbued with sabi quality. It was moved to the museum's garden from Kyoto.

Kamishibai, Tokyo

One evening the hotel where I stayed in Tokyo organised a Kamishibai performance. It was performed by two university students. I was really impressed with the show and could draw parallels between Kamishibai and other traditional performing arts. Instead of Kabuki’s actors and Bunraku’s puppets Kamishibai has a series of pictures displayed on a small stage. The sound effects are reduced to percussion of wooden clappers. However, the role of narrator/actor is as important as in Kabuki and Bunraku. They reduced everything to basics, but did not compromise on good storytelling!

P. S. For stories on other Japanese performing arts see the following blog posts: Bunraku (http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2010/02/bunraku.html), Kabuki (http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2010/02/kabuki-za.html), Noh and Kyogen (http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2012/10/noh-and-kyogen-at-kongo-nohgakudo.html).