Volume 4, Issue 4 Pacific Northwest Botanical Artists show in the Miller Library April 7 through May 6
Once again this spring we'll be hosting the Pacific Northwest Botanical Artists, our local chapter of the American Society of Botanical Artists, for a show and sale. This much-anticipated exhibit opens on the day of the Garden Lovers' Book Sale party on Friday, April 7,
2017, with several of the artists present that night only to showcase their work.
Tickets for the fundraising opening night ($25 in advance) are available directly from the library. Stop by or call us at 206-543-0415. An
added attraction this year will be an appearance by local author Nita-Jo
Rountree. She will be selling and signing her new book, Growing Roses in the Pacific Northwest.
Speaking of the book sale (free and open 9-3 on Saturday, April 8), we have a large inventory this year. Any leftover books will be
available for very low prices (many free) in the library the first three days of the following week,
April 10-12. We can accept cash and checks only for this post-sale clearance.
The exhibit and sale of botanical illustrations, including prints, cards and original works, will remain open through May 6.
Recent and notable bonsai books: a literature review by Ann Hobson, Miller Library volunteer
These books profile, or are written by, three of the best-known
artists in the American bonsai community. Two of the artists are based in the
Puget Sound region.
David De Groot was the curator of the Pacific Rim Bonsai
Collection (now the Pacific Bonsai Museum) in Federal Way for 25 years, until
his retirement in 2014. His book Principles of Bonsai Design is the
long-awaited new and expanded version of his 1995 classic Basic Bonsai Design. In his new book the author enlarges on his view that bonsai should be
considered as a fine art rather than a horticultural novelty. Interestingly, he was a
classical musician before becoming a bonsai practitioner, and is a collector of
Asian art. There is little information here about how to train trees as bonsais
or how to care for them. The emphasis is on choosing a design that references
nature, but is a work of art in its own right. The book has many very clear
drawings illustrating his points about proportion, balance, container selection
and display options. Photographs show examples of trees in nature that can act
as inspirations for bonsai design. This is not the book to page through for
awe-inspiring pictures of bonsai, but rather to use as a reference when
deciding how to convert starting plant material into an aesthetically-pleasing
bonsai.
The second book, Gnarly Branches, Ancient Trees is a profile of
the life and work of Dan Robinson, written by a friend and fellow bonsai
enthusiast, Will Hiltz, with additional photography by Victrinia Ridgeway. Dan Robinson
is the owner of Elandan Gardens near Bremerton and is known to many local
residents through his display gardens at the Seattle Flower and Garden Show. He
trained in forestry and worked for many years as a landscaper. This work, and
his posting to Korea while serving in the army in the 1960’s, inspired an
interest in bonsai. His bonsai creations are highly original—naturalistic and
free-form, in contrast to the refined style of traditional Japanese bonsai. Many
originated with trees collected locally from sites where they were surviving
under stress, such as in bogs or on rocky mountain peaks. The appeal of this
book is not just the story of a local personality in the bonsai community, but
also the beautiful photography of the bonsais he has created.
Finally, Classical Bonsai Art by William N. Valavanis is
both an introduction to the basic techniques and design of bonsai, and also a
detailed description of the development of 100 of his bonsai creations over
several years. The author is the founder of the International Bonsai Arboretum
in Rochester, New York, the organizer of several U.S. National Bonsai
Exhibitions and a nationally known bonsai teacher. He relates that his interest
in bonsai began when he was 11 years old, and continued through his
undergraduate studies in ornamental horticulture. He subsequently made many
trips to Japan and apprenticed with famous bonsai masters there. The most fascinating
aspect of the book is the insight it gives into the way the author plans a
design from his starting material and then manipulates the tree to achieve his
goal. He documents the process with detailed photographs often spanning periods
of up to 30 years. Along the way we see how he tried out various containers or
different orientations of the tree. Each sequence ends with a
beautifully-staged photograph of the bonsai in its current state.
These three books will appeal to different kinds of readers:
a detailed text on bonsai as fine art for experienced practitioners, a book of
beautiful photographs of unusual bonsai creations (and the story of their
creator) that will appeal to any reader, and an insight into the work of a
classical bonsai artist that will inspire anyone interested in the practice of
bonsai.
New to the Library
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