Bonsai artist Naoki Maeoka

This post is a little tribute to the craftsmanship and artistry of Naoki Maeoka. He was my “oyakata” while I was playing a deshi-for-a-month during my residency at the Fujikawa Kouka-en in Osaka (see the post about my work there at http://lomov.blogspot.com.au/2015/08/my-residence-at-fujikawa-kouka-en-osaka.html). Naoki is a resident bonsai artist at Fujikawa Kouka-en Bonsai Nursery in Osaka. He graduated from Osaka University of Arts and spent sixteen years working as a graphic designer. He began to pursue bonsai as a hobby in 2001. Eventually, his passion for bonsai grew so strong that he gave up his corporate career and completed a traditional five-year apprenticeship under the 2nd generation bonsai master Keiichi Fujikawa. This led Naoki to attaining professional bonsai qualifications awarded by the Nippon Bonsai Association. In 2012 Naoki began teaching bonsai at the Fujikawa International School of Bonsai. He has instructed dozens of students from all over the world and I am privileged to be one of them.

  

Here, I put together few before-and-after images of bonsai I witnessed him styling in June 2015. They represent about two thirds of the trees he styled during that month. Let’s start with the pine tree next to Naoki in the image above. This is a classic Japanese design where the tree evokes that famous pine bonsai illustration from Somoku Kinyoshu (see http://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015086754721;view=1up;seq=4). The very first tree I observed Naoki to style is shown in the image below. It is a Black Pine variety with flaky bark. This bark gives a tree the aged appearance and makes the trunk look much thicker.

  

Below is the top view of a wired and styled branch of this tree.

Below is a Red Pine. Image ‘A’ shows it before the styling, image ‘B’ shows the tree after the removal of old needles and image ‘C’ shows it after the styling. This tree has been sold before Naoki finished styling it.

Below are before-and-after images of two more pines.

The Black Pine shown in the images below is somewhat odd. The images show the styling done by Naoki in June 2015. To see the previous work done on this tree see episode 37 of ‘Bonsai Art of Japan’ on YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0LOZ3643sM). This kind of tree presents an artist with a real challenge, a true test of his abilities so to speak and I believe that Mr. Fujikawa and his apprentices were able to utilise most of this tree’s potential.

Apart from working with the trees, Naoki is a highly skilled bonsai pot maker. He carved the pot shown below from a single slab of clay. This method of making bonsai pots allows a lot of creative freedom, but it is very time consuming, therefore pots like this are very unique and valuable.

For Naoki’s latest work see his website at http://bonsai-vibe.tumblr.com/. For more of his work plus the latest events see his Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/people/Naoki-Maeoka/100007071702520. You can also watch an interview with Naoki on Bjorn Bjorholm’s ‘Bonsai Art of Japan’ on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=18&v=jR__9Frwpcg.

Spring kusamono

I don’t have impressive bonsai trees in my collection, but this spring a couple of my kusamono looked nice. The left image shows a native orchid Dendrobium kingianum in flower. The image on the right shows a South African succulent Adromischus cooperi with flower spikes. It is satisfying to see plants thriving in containers made by oneself.

End of year pots

This post is to showcase a couple of bonsai pots that slipped under my blogging radar. They are not awesome, but they are decent and worth showing here. Pot ‘A’ was a custom job where the shape, colour and dimensions were specified by a friend who needed it for an oddly shaped gardenia. The pot was hand-built and electric kiln fired (15 x 11 cm). Pot ‘B’ is slab-built and electric kiln fired. Pot ‘C’ is hand-built and wood-fired with no glaze. All are fired to stoneware temperature.

Kinkaku-ji and Rikusho-no-Matsu

During my recent bonsai residency in Osaka, I had only four days off and I used them to visit some temple gardens in Kansai area. One of them was Kinkaku-ji. Looking-up “the Golden Pavilion” on the Internet parades a long string of idyllic images like the one above left. The image above right however, shows the reality behind those “heavenly” shots. During my visit, the temple was crowded and noisy. Getting to one of the better look-out points required a combination of waiting in a queue and pushing through people.  

On a different topic, Kinkaku-ji has a small place in the bonsai lore. Its garden features a 600 year-old pine that goes by the name ‘Rikusho-no-Matsu’ (see the image below). The tree was originally a bonsai planted in the ground by shogun Ashikaga Yoshimitsu (1358 – 1408). The place was his house at that time and he was just planting a tree in the garden. These days, the tree is shaped as a sailing boat, which is reportedly heading to the "Western Pure Land of Ultimate Bliss". Let’s not get too excited, it’s only a tree.

Nanban bonsai pots (南蛮/南蠻盆器)

I was always curious about bonsai pots the Japanese call Nanban. My recent residency at Fujikawa Kouka-en in Osaka fuelled my curiosity about them even further. After my return to Sydney, I wanted all the Nanban information I could get. My first impulse was to search the Net, which brought only disappointment. Then I remembered that John Naka had something about it in his “Bonsai Techniques II”. Sure enough the book has a couple of short paragraphs about Nanban containers, but it wasn't enough to quench my thirst for knowledge.

Usually my access to Japanese sources is non-existent, but this time I was lucky to find one. At Kouka-en nursery, I came across of the following book: Nippon Bonsai Association (1990) Masterpieces of bonsai pot art - Grand edition, Volumes I & II, Nippon Bonsai Association publication, Japan (美術盆器名品大成 , 日本盆栽協同組合編). These are two absolutely magnificent volumes. Unfortunately, the book is out of print, prohibitively expensive and in Japanese, which makes it somewhat inaccessible to the bonsai community outside Japan. Volume II has a section titled “Nanban”. Below is my interpretative translation of this section to English.

“The term Nanban referring to a particular kind of imported pottery is vague and difficult to classify. Due to Japan’s national isolation during the Tokugawa era, the precise meaning of the word Nanban, implying a foreign country in the South, is obscure. Some believe that it is a name for Taiwan, others think that it is a name of some other place in South-East Asia. In short, the majority considers China, Korea, India and surrounds to be the most likely places of Nanban’s origin.” This is a passage from an article by Zesora Kobayashi published in 1935 September issue of “Bonsai” magazine. The author was an eminent figure in the bonsai community, who brought Nanban pots into focus in this excellent article, which later became a great point of reference.

Nanban doesn’t refer to a particular country or production area. It was a collective term for certain artefacts used by tea masters in the world of art and antiques. Before the Meiji era, miscellaneous utensils of daily use have been brought over from the Southern seas for the tea masters of olden days. At first, these containers have been used as vessels for flower arrangement. Being highly prized, there was no way to satisfy the demand for them. Therefore at the request of tea masters, potters such as Ninami Dohachi, Hozen Eiraku, Mokubei Aoki and Miura Chikusen began making Nanban imitations. A wide range of Japanese-made Nanban imitations included pottery from Bizen and Ryukyuan Islands as well as Naeshirogawa ware of Satsuma and Shyodaiyaki ware of Higo. All of them are collectively referred to as Nanban.

The earliest Nanban containers entered bonsai scene before the Meiji period and were typically small round trough-shaped pots, dishes and jar lids, which were modified into a bonsai pot by drilling holes in their bottom. These were produced in Taiwan, Ryukyuan Islands, Luzon and according to Zesora Kobayashi in Southern China.

There are only few tribes among Taiwan aboriginals which knew pottery. One of them is the Yami tribe of the Orchid Island situated several dozen nautical miles off the southern coast of Taiwan. It is also said that the Ami tribe from the east coast plains of Taiwan, made yellowish colour ware referred to as "hannera". Very primitive brown Nanban pots are assumed to be from there. Apart from those, there were also seed storage jars brought from Taiwan. It is believed that they have been made in Xiamen, China and then brought to Japan via Taiwan.

During the thirty odd years between the 9th year of Keichō era (1613) and the 12th year of Kan'ei era (1636), Tokugawa Ieyasu issued official permits, allowing merchants to trade with Korea, Ming Empire, Luzon, Annam, Cambodia and other places. Sea voyages exploring coastal areas extended from Taiwan to Macau, Sumatra and Thailand. Some of the Nanban containers were brought to Japan during this period.

The age of Nanban pots is generally not essential. They are primarily admired and valued for their rustic grace and charm. At some point in the past, a bonsai aesthete realised that these qualities would complement bonsai. Unfortunately, the name of the person who introduced Nanban containers to bonsai is unknown. Soon after that however, Nanban containers became quite popular, while they were rather rare. Yonekichi Kibe of former Taikō-en bonsai nursery has been the lead driver of the Nanban popularity till the late Meiji period. In response to this popularity, Chinese merchants set up a production of containers imitating Nanban shape and appearance. They were mostly produced in Xiamen, Fujian from where they were shipped to Japan via Shanghai. This supply of Nanban containers to Japan continued throughout the pre-war period until 1941.

As explained above, it is not possible to ascertain the precise place of origin of Nanban ware due to their wide geographic spread. The only exception from Nanban category is the Yixing ware, despite of the fact that concave lids for large storage jars were produced there. They are excluded from the Nanban class because of the differences in texture and colour of the clay.

Nanban containers look primitive and amateurish, however making them requires sound craftsmanship. Its simplicity and spontaneity makes them a particularly natural choice for some bonsai, however one needs to overcome certain mental resistance to fully embrace Nanban as such a choice.

This passage is all I know about Nanban pots so far. Below are the illustrations which accompany the passage in the book. They should help you with a mental picture of Nanban containers. 

If you have more information about Nanban pots please point me and the readers in the right direction.