New Apprentice: John Eads

Another has joined our growing list of indentured servants at Crataegus Bonsai, following the path well laid by Bobby Curttright and Andrew Robson. Bobby has since started his business in Portland, OR and Andrew is in his last month before freedom.

John can feed you. He’s run a successful wood-fired pizza food cart in Portland for the past ten years, a skill set which delights those of us like me who tend to be subsistence rather than inspired eaters.

John Eads, new apprentice at Crataegus Bonsai

John is from the prairies of west Texas, where he was surrounded by millions of acres of ten-foot tall shin oaks, and so he says ‘his formative years were spent with little trees’. His background is in small business development. The numbers of beings at the studio residence will swell with the addition of this family of four, including his wife Leah and children Amos, 11, and Clara, 7. I hear the kids are particularly excited about the cats.

John has already changed our lives by teaching us how to make kombucha, which Andrew and I are nearly addicted to now, and to which a friend of mine on learning this said, ‘Oh jeesh why don’t you just brew beer like a real man!’

So. Dark paths will be trod.

Additionally, John has expressed interest in making a development nursery for bonsai—setting young plants on the road to aesthetic brilliance—which will continue to build the local bonsai community in unique ways (John plans to stay in Portland). I’ll keep everyone up to date on that and of course any new developments on the dark paths.