When I think back on that time in Washington so long ago the memory is golden to me, an experience that positively changed my life. Connections made there that April led to other important learning experiences in the years to come, eventually taking me all the way to the other side of the world and back again.
Read MoreHe didn't crack this like an obvious joke. He said it straight faced and then went about his business. This was one of several instances during the program where Mr. Yoshimura projected what I took to be an iconoclastic tendency. He was conservative in his appearance, precise and formal in manner, but seemed rebellious in his attitude. At the conclusion of the program I turned to Janet and said, "What a dangerous old man!"
Read MoreIn 1994, even as I was working toward the goal of a regional bonsai community with The North Carolina Arboretum at its center, I was trying to accelerate my personal bonsai learning curve. Word reached me early in the year that Yuji Yoshimura was going to be in Charlotte, doing a workshop program for the Bonsai Society of the Carolinas. Ever since meeting Mr. Yoshimura at the convention the year before I had been trying to figure out how to pursue the tantalizing offer of personalized instruction with him.
Read MoreThe time has come for me to talk about Yuji Yoshimura. His name has appeared repeatedly in this Journal, because his influence on me — and, through me, on the Arboretum's bonsai identity — has been profound. But I have not yet told the story of the experiences with him that set my bonsai thinking on such a fateful course.
Read MoreAs the new year began in 1959, thirty-seven-year-old Yuji Yoshimura began teaching bonsai classes at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. He'd arrived in America laden with all the bonsai materials needed because they would not be otherwise available. This amounted to more than a ton of baggage, and the whole operation must have required prodigious planning and organization.
Read MoreIn writing about my experience with Mr. Yoshimura, I am looking back over a span of nearly thirty years— long enough ago that some significant changes have occurred in how we live everyday life. Perhaps greatest among them is the revolution wrought by advances in electronic communication.
Read MoreIn January of 1995 I traveled to Briarcliff Manor, New York, for a three-day study session with Mr. Yuji Yoshimura. Shortly after my return, I wrote an account of the experience and submitted it to Arboretum administration to communicate the value of what I had learned. What follows is an unedited transcript of that report.
Read MoreMr. Yoshimura loaded my slides into the projector's carousel then started projecting the images onto a small screen, also crammed into the room. Here my lessons began. As each tree's image was thrown up on the screen, Mr. Yoshimura would study it briefly and then begin a critique.
Read MoreMr. Yoshimura's teaching style was direct. He spoke declaratively and took pains to be exact in his statements. He expressed himself with authority that arose from an absolute command of his subject, acquired over an entire lifetime spent immersed in the art of miniature trees and landscapes.
Read MoreWhen Mr. Yoshimura wasn't preparing me for the future, he was looking back over the decades of his own past, trying, I think, to discern why things went the way they did. He spoke of episodes from all different phases of his life, from the distant days of his youth up to the most recent years.
Read MoreI had brought along three ceramic tray containers — low-profile, good quality Japanese stoneware ovals, the kind traditionally used for forest plantings. Mr. Yoshimura looked at those a moment, then said, "Come with me!" At this he became animated to a surprising degree, scurrying in short, rapid steps toward the greenhouse. I followed.
Read MoreEven today I can't think of a great many technical tips I can say for certain came to me from Mr. Yoshimura. He contributed a good deal of information in that regard, but it all gets blended in with things I learned elsewhere, before and after my time with him. The real gold of my Yoshimura experience was in all the stuff that perplexed me at the time.
Read MoreOn a mostly forgotten day in February, 1995, the telephone in my office rang. When I picked it up I heard Mr. Yoshimura's voice on the other end of the line. It was a happy surprise to hear his voice, because we hadn't spoken since my study visit with him in early January.
Read MoreNine thirty the next morning I was at the hotel and Mr. Yoshimura was not waiting in the lobby. I stopped at the front desk and asked the woman working there what room Mr. Yoshimura was in. She told me the number then asked if I wanted her to call his room and let him know I was there. "No," I said. "He's expecting me."
Read MoreWe talked easily enough. Mr. Yoshimura's new surroundings were newer, cleaner and less cluttered than his home in Briarcliff Manor had been, and it felt different encountering him there. One thing hadn't changed, though — he still spoke to me in riddles sometimes.
Read MoreThe bonsai professional had been taking the Englishwoman and her husband on a tour of the professional's bonsai garden. The professional introduced the curator to his English guests, explaining to the guests that the curator was in charge of a public bonsai collection in the United States and had come to Japan to study.
Read MoreThose pots were made in Japan or China and their character was part of the whole “Ancient Art of Bonsai” package. In the beginning this was not a problem. The desirability of producing bonsai that adhered to a certain conventionally approved form was only another of the rules in a game I was learning to play. After some time, however, an unanticipated dilemma arose.
Read More
