Thoughts At the End of Year One
The Curator’s Journal began publishing the last Friday in March, 2022. That means this week's entry brings us around full circle and we now officially close out the first year of the course. Here at the juncture where one year ends and another is about to begin, it seems opportune to pause a moment and take in the scenery, looking back at where we've been and surveying what might be ahead.
The first year of the Journal produced fifty-two weekly entries. Included among them was the following:
Four video bonsai demonstrations, produced by Arboretum staff in the Education department, exclusively for the Curator's Journal
The premier of a fifth video — The American Elm; A Naturalistic Legacy — produced by Appalachian Bonsai in conjunction with the Arboretum's Education department
Twelve monthly-themed essays
Origin information about sixteen specific bonsai in the Arboretum's collection
Profiles of six important people who made significant contributions to the development of bonsai at the Arboretum: Dr. John Creech, "Aunt" Martha Auten, Ms. Dorothy Wells, Dr. Bev Armstrong, Mr. Susumu Nakamura, Ms. Virginia Turner
A four-part series about aged trees in nature
A three-part series about my experience in Japan
A two-part series about pest control
Meditations on the following subjects: Stress, bonsai returning to the garden in spring, tree appreciation, native plants for bonsai use, the American elm, autumn coloration in the bonsai collection, the winter solstice, how trees are shaped in nature and in bonsai
Hundreds of curated photographic images (perhaps more than one thousand; too many to count)
That's not a bad degree of output.
Coming into the Curator's Journal project a year ago I was not in the best writing shape, but now I feel fairly warmed up. It was a lot of work to meet the weekly deadline. I do not say that in a complaining way, having willingly taken on the assignment and then insisting on the schedule. The discipline necessary to do the writing over the course of the first year while also meeting other work commitments was an engaging challenge. Year two, which begins with next week's entry, will follow the same demanding schedule. The sustained effort to maintain both production of Journal entries and the quality of content is not an act of bravado or masochism, but rather the final exertions of a long-distance runner who is nearing the end of the race.
Next month will mark my thirty-third year of employment with the Arboretum. I have been managing the bonsai program for the past thirty years, since its inception. There are plenty of people who have work careers running longer than that, but thirty years is still a good chunk of time. I hope the Arboretum's bonsai program goes on for many times that many years, but it will be up to other people if that is to happen. My responsibility was to get the program off the ground, to build the collection and guide the development of the bonsai garden, and to help organize an audience that could understand and appreciate a somewhat esoteric way of aesthetically interpreting nature. Whatever comes next will build off of what has been done up to now. Other people will be responsible for carrying on bonsai at the North Carolina Arboretum and shaping its future, but I was responsible for the beginning, and that was a rare privilege.
Let no one jump to conclusions, happy or sad! I am not gone yet and I don't have a timeline for leaving. But at this point whatever time might still be ahead looks don't-blink short compared to all the years piled up behind.
The Curator's Journal is meant to be a summation. It is the inside view of how bonsai came to the North Carolina Arboretum and how it came to be what it is here (because it very well could have gone in other directions). The Journal is meant to record the people, places and events that fortuitously combined to shape the beginning of a unique program, and that effort is predicated on the idea that folks who find value in the program might find such information interesting. The Journal is also a repository for data about the Arboretum's bonsai collection, a place where what is known about the specimens we have can be secured for future reference. Numerous entries of this sort were presented in year one and they will continue in year two. The Journal is being written partly because I enjoyed the life adventure of being a bonsai curator and think the experience makes a story worth telling. But I am also invested in the Journal out of a sense of responsibility. It would be negligent of me to end my time at the Arboretum without providing an account of how bonsai succeeded in taking root and flourishing in this place. It would be wrong of me to leave without telling what I know about the little trees in our collection, because nobody else knows those things. The Curator's Journal is my attempt to honor my Arboretum commitment and finish well.
What will year two of the Journal look like? To some extent it will be similar to the first year, but not entirely. Likely the coming months of Curator's Journal will have a more instructional component, in keeping with the fact that this is an educational course. There was substantial educational content in the first year, but expect that to become more focused in year two. One big change in the year ahead will be the introduction of a more interactive format. Subscribers will have the ability to leave comments that will be visible to all Journal readers. This new feature is not intended to be a Question & Answer forum, although some of that might occur. Instead, the idea is to enhance the value of the Journal by opening it up to other voices that may provide commentary in the form of observation or the sharing of relevant experience. The comment section will be moderated to make sure everyone plays nice. If you have any thoughts related to what you read in the coming year of Curator's Journal, I hope you will feel free to join in the conversation.
Year two will also offer the Journal in a more accessible format. Anyone will now be able to go to the Curator's Journal website and see the latest entry and its two immediate predecessors for free. The objective in doing this is to expand readership as much as possible. As a good friend recently asked me, "If everyone can read the Journal for free, why should anyone pay for it?" Good question! Here are three benefits to being a second-year subscriber:
Subscribers will receive email notification when new content is posted, with a direct link to the latest installment.
Subscribers will have the ability to post comments (non-subscribers will not).
Subscribers will have access to all content generated for the Journal, including all past entries from year one plus year two. (Non-subscribers will see only the latest entry and the two preceding it, with all other material going into an archive only subscribers can access.)
There is another benefit to Curator's Journal subscribers: the satisfaction of knowing you are supporting bonsai at The North Carolina Arboretum in a direct and meaningful way. I have shared with you my personal feelings regarding the importance of the Journal as documentation of the first thirty years of the bonsai program, and by subscribing to year one you helped enable that undertaking. The work isn't done, though. There is so much information still to be recorded that I have no doubts about being able to meet another fifty-two week writing commitment, at least not as regards material for content. As a senior citizen I have legitimate reasons to be leery of the energy it will take to do the job, but the encouragement of subscribers is energizing. Your buy-in is validation of the Journal’s merit. Subscriptions help pay the bills, too.
Thank you for being a charter subscriber to the Curator's Journal. The journey continues from here and I hope you will stay with us.