Professional bonsai and suiseki from Peter Warren. Japanese bonsai educated by well known bonsai master Kunio Kobayashi.

Joy Of Bonsai...

I had a very interesting stay in Japan at the start of this year, it was very busy but I had the chance to experience some different things which have broadened my appreciation of Bonsai and what it means to me.  One of the mentally hardest experiences was to come to terms with the fact that I enjoyed an exhibition of just 15 trees and stones much more than I did the entire Kokufuten.  The national exhibition, touted as the pinnacle of Bonsai is not the be all and end all of life.  True, there are many superb specimens and some beautiful trees but there is also a lot of dross that I would not wish to have in my own collection.  I walked around it this year and the words of a miserable man came to mind, “it says nothing to me about my life”.   

Searching for an identity, a personal aesthetic is the next progression on my path as a Bonsai artist, finding trees which interest me and stimulate my spirit.  I make the difference here between trees I style for people and ones which I style for myself, just as a master cordwainer who makes bespoke Oxfords every day for his clients, wears a pair of dirty old Nike on the weekend.

Just this last weekend, middle of March 2010, the Joy of Bonsai show was held in Bath.  I was asked to display a tree which I did.  It was part of the Innovations display which had the brief to make Bonsai more accessible to the British public and do something a little different.  I came up with an intentionally very simple display which said something to me about my life. A fusion of Japanese classical aesthetics combined with a Yorkshire sensibility.  It is a display which feels at home in either culture but fully comprehended by neither, betwixt and between, in a state of flux.

The timing couldn’t have been any better, the pregnant buds of the sakura heralding the coming of spring, bursting into a delicate and fragrant bloom mid-exhibition, filling the display space with a sense of virginal purity, reflected in the styling of the tree, not defiled by wire but young and bold.  The opposite can be seen in the pot it is contained within, an antique white glazed round with such a deep patina that it looks brown.  It acts counter balance to the stretching vigour and vibrancy of the tree both visually and metaphorically.  It is displayed upon the reflective surface of a Shin Nuri Ita. A black lacquered board which in the Japanese aesthetic elevates the object displayed on it to a higher level , raising the rank of formality.  Using such an informal tree and irregular pot on such a board may displease those who sit with their check lists and disregard anything that does not compute, however for myself, I rank trees such as this higher than any formal upright pine or powerful juniper, so in my eyes, the rank is appropriate.

The use of the cricket ball was equally fortuitous with regards to timing.  I have always wandered the world with my cricket ball which I stole, quite brazenly, from my younger brother.  It served as a reminder of home and of the things which I held dear to me;  hard single mindedness and a delight in complaining about everything but putting up with it nevertheless, two character traits which put me in good stead for coping with the Chief.  It was much easier than carrying around Chips and Gravy.  Throughout the week running up to the event, I thought long and hard about what would be the perfect way to anticipate the coming season, a feature of all Japanese displays; that only an Englishman would get and feel a sense of the coming spring and ultimately wet summer.  There it was; both a personal touch and one which is truly English.  In order to make something which is valid and coherent for a Western audience, it is not necessary to throw the baby out with the bath water.

 

The other display which I put on recently was up at the Shohin show at Willowbog.  Despite the snow and treacherous terrain, many made it up there for a wonderful weekend.  It was also the perfect opportunity to wheel out my little rose.  I picked this up at an auction in January as I fell in love at first sight.  The movement is sublime, the texture is phenomenal and the age is incredible.  Superlatives fail me.  Maybe I am just a bit weird for liking it but it just did it for me.  As previously noted, it was displayed in a Taisho era pot with a blue glaze.  It was a tight squeeze to get it in there but it did go.  The stand is a modern stand of mulberry wood which is made by a man who I know in Japan.  It was originally one the Chief has for sale but he let me have it for next to nothing when I showed him the combination of tree, pot and stand.  He just laughed and said that I was crazy, he loved the tree but said it was professional suicide to display such a thing in your own name...but at the same time, knowing how stubborn I am at sticking to my principles, he expected nothing less from me.   I obtained the other items from people in the business I like and respect and I have sent them pictures of this display as a thank you for helping me out.

I am not trying to change the world with my trees.  I just want to make something which I find beautiful and which hopefully others can appreciate.  What I do is ultimately selfish and quite indulgent but it says something to me about my life. 

Amid concrete and clay
And general decay
Nature must still find a way
So ignore all the codes of the day
Let your juvenile impulse sway