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tradition is but a springboard—from there, bonsai is limitless
from the blog
Life in a Teacup: A Tiny Home Memoir
Do you recall the first place that felt like home, once you left your parents? For me it was a Lilliputian cabin in my mid-20’s, after several uninspiring apartments. I lived in that stucco cabin for a year. Smaller than most bedrooms at 7’ x 14’—all of 98 sq. feet—the ceiling was so low that tall visitors […]
Cantilevered, Ancient Vine Maple on a Board—
Here’s a project long in the dreaming—a Vine Maple on a metal / slab support. I’ve enjoyed cantilevered forms for their suggestion of precariousness. Which nature has in abundance. The tree was collected from the Oregon Cascades in 2020. It’s an old thing, with a rotted base that’s seen many trunks die back and new […]
The Crataegus Garden by Drone-
When Bonsai Empire shot a new online educational course here this spring, we used a drone to film the garden. I’d never seen it from that vantage. The third clip on this video arrested me—from high up, the garden layout is exactly as I’d sketched it 13 years ago, in pencil, on an 8 x […]
Michael Hagedorn 