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Posts Tagged ‘Hemlock’

The Year in Photos…

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on April 13, 2013 | 6 Comments »

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Silly fun with Ingo Klemmend and Ivo Druge at Bonsai Zentrum, Germany. Ingo owns Bonsai Zentrum with his father, Wolfgang, and Ivo is one of the brains behind the beautiful German magazine Bonsai Art.

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Wandering around Bonsai Zentrum-

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Teaching a workshop in Germany using… interpretive dance…?

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A favorite Mexican restaurant of Portland students-

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The Portland Bonsai Village passport on its trip through Holland…

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Treating juniper deadwood last summer-

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What a shoe-free home looks like when Seasonal Students (‘SeaStudents’) drop in-

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Greg Brenden and I on our first Portland Bonsai Village ‘organizational dinner’, which ended up as an outrageously transparent excuse to treat ourselves to some good food-

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Under a shelter waiting for the light rail to the Portland airport-

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Quirky small Shore pine collected last fall, now growing buds-

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Nice client tree, Japanese White pine-

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Map of European trip, not showing a very brief stop in the Czech Republic–

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Fall color in my bonsai yard-

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Cool bamboo bike in Portland-

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My artist friends Pigment, Print, and Photo (named after their media) at our first, and sadly only, brunch meeting. Guys, we are a sorry lot for not doing this since last summer!

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The ‘Bison Bank’, courtesy of Greg Brenden’s whimsical brain. It’s only 1/64 filled with coins so far.

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Lovely antique chinese pot-

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Vine maple tower, in an early phase, planning out the adventure with a sharpie pen-

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Eileen with her larch at a Portland Study Group-

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Joanne at a Portland Study Group (and Greg, peeking around the door)-

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Jorge with a hornbeam project-

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Cowpie blooming this spring-

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Gary Wood at Telperion Farms working on a young rascal-

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Gravel moving day in my backyard with Jorge, Troy, and Ed-

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My friend Chris with Ruri, looking at her climbing wood-fired kiln-

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Amsterdam-

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Vine maple tower-

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Troy with a massive pomegranite-

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Noelander’s Trophy in January-

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Prague, a shot very late in the day. My camera invented light that was not there-

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The John Lennon wall in Prague-

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Olympic National Rain Forest-

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Curious stairs in Prague-

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Opera house in Vienna-

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Ray watering in my backyard-

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Wacky light show in a church, Vienna-

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My opera-singer aunt, Elizabeth Hagedorn, entering a rather glitzy elevator, Vienna-

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Konnor and a lime sulfuring project-

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Stair moss (I think), Olympic National Rain Forest-

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Hemlock clump (to be featured later…)

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Photo shoot for German bonsai magazine Bonsai Art, with translator Heike von Gunst. This looks weirdly like a posed shot, but wasn’t. Tree is a larch. Another future post-

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Sharing rice pudding recipe with complete stranger-

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Photos and Stories from the Fall Seasonal-

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on November 24, 2012 | Leave a Comment »

In a mix of seriousness and hilarity, the 2012 Fall Seasonal wrapped up a couple weeks ago leaving us all well-fed and with somewhat dirtier fingers. Here’s a few photos of those three days–

This was one tree we worked on, a Mountain hemlock from Canada. This was the original front.

New front chosen at the Seasonal.

And after Bob’s work. It was a fun project tree with the key branch moved from behind the trunk to the right side.

Naturally, students will mimic their teachers, and sadly this includes irreverence. Howard trumped everyone with this t-shirt, which suggests several possible conclusions:
1. He’d had a hard morning and wasn’t going to take any !#$^& from anyone
2. Impishness is a honed character trait, and he generally doesn’t give a rat’s ass
3. He’s from Chicago

Something always seems to need fixing at the Seasonals. A few Seasonals back we had pair of glasses that needed fixing, and this time it was my hand. Thankfully it was expertly immobilized by Seasonal surgeons using completely inadequate tape and rubber bands. One does lose a bit of authority waving such a club around, although I have a tough time keeping a straight face around such silly students anyhow—2 Americans and 3 Canadians for gosh sakes. Thank you Ed, Howard, Ray, Bob, and stalwart Roger for once again braving the Seasonals, where you never really know what’s going to happen other than something’s probably going to break, and it might not have anything to do with bonsai.

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Mountain Hemlock On Levitated Nylon Board

Posted in Before and after, tagged , , , , on March 31, 2012 | 30 Comments »

Yes, that is the correct headline… bonsai on plastic. I wasn’t too sure of it myself.

In the late summer of 2010 I collected this Mountain Hemlock, Tsuga mertensiana, with my friend Anton Nijhuis in Canada, and potted it in a strange box that was sort of cantilevered up because the tree had been prostrate, growing through the mosses on bedrock. Digging through the moss uncovered a rather curious twin-trunk base that seemed like it would have to be styled in an unorthodox way, so naturally I wanted it. A year and a half later the box was full of roots, and the time seemed right to complete this weird idea of mine.

I’ve always wondered about alternatives to stone and prefab slabs. They tend to crack or break just when a show is just being set up; their timing is truly impeccable. Also, a bit ironic given that I used to be a potter, I’ve been drawn to the idea of making nearly invisible platforms, in place of a ceramic container. In other words, something supporting the tree that is really not an element in its presentation. So the idea of an inconspicuous, impervious, strong support had me pondering for a while.

Like many of my creative endeavors, I quiz everyone I know. ‘So, I have this idea… how would you do this if you wanted to do that?’ And you end up with a collage of ideas that you edit and orchestrate into a complete vision, sort of like an orchestra conductor or movie director must do I suppose. With an assortment of weird tools, bolts and ideas the March Seasonal students and I spent more than a day cobbling the thing together, and it was great fun—- Thanks Roger, Gary, John and Konnor!

Mountain Hemlock before styling.

Styled, but before the potting experiment...

Right side view---tree swoops far to the rear before coming forward.

A full box of roots in 100% pumice, one and a half years from collection.

Tree out of the box in position on the nylon board, with a sketch of the platform design in ink. The fragile rootball is held together with cheesecloth. Lots of moving around at this point with an unwrapped rootball would have destroyed it. Gary or Roger's legs, I think... sorry guys, I am not attentive enough to identify your boots or belts. Thanks to both of you, though! There was a fair bit of holding things in position that day.

Konnor Jenson, my intrepid periodic apprentice, filing the edges of the board. Sporting a knit hat, he looks like a diehard Portlander!

The plan to hold the leaning muck wall in place. We did not take a shot of the twine that we wove between the chopsticks, offering a bit more support. The bolt heads you see are the top side of our levitation idea, with round end caps underneath serving as inset 'legs'.

Mossing the surface; disembodied nose courtesy John Kahlie. He passed the mossing test with flying colors and will be relieved to move on to lichen in the next Seasonal... Just kidding, John!

The final design. The small accent plants near the base are heather and a curious evergreen penstemon, for those interested in the smaller elements. The moss may eventually grow over the edge of the platform, hiding it, at least that is the hope. This tree had an odd bend in the right smaller trunk, and I thought the addition of a cantilevered wall on the right side would marry well with that, sort of like a second bad note hit in a jazz piece that you think, 'Huh, that guy must have intended that, so maybe it works.' Opinions? Please let me know. In any event, this tree needs filling out a bit. The buds are swelling well in my greenhouse and it will be in there another month under a misting apparatus. Just like it got naturally on Vancouver Island...

Also, take a look at what Jonas is doing with another hemlock at:

http://bonsaitonight.com/2012/04/03/mountain-hemlock/

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Hemlock group

Posted in Before and after, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on March 22, 2010 | 8 Comments »

This Mountain hemlock has been one of those intriguing trees that is so big at 65″ it is almost more of a conversation piece than a bonsai. And yet thinner trunked trees can be considerably taller and still ‘work’ as bonsai. I collected it about 1 1/2 years ago, and put it in pumice in a cedar box that was sort of cobbled together in an effort to have it appear to be on a slope of a hill.

Having dreamed about that hill for a while, at the March 2010 Seasonal we put it on a temporary plywood slab (having not yet made or found a nice final slab) and erected a muck dam and at least got the footings of this unstyled tree underway. The chopsticks drilled into the plywood was a spur of the moment idea. When I woke up that morning I had no idea how to keep that muck wall overhang from falling over.

It may be ready for styling this fall, although I’ve always felt it would be a very light styling. There is already so much of a natural and wild and windy feeling about this group that I won’t be doing much.

Here’s a bit of a photo essay:

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