From: Jim Lewis
Subject: [IBC] Bonsai display
I'd enjoy hearing from those of you who have used your trees as
part of some "event" or other. Did you display the tree alone,
with other trees, or with other objects of one kind or another?
Were your displays "Oriental" or a mixture of the Orient (the
bonsai, perhaps) and the Occident (something else?)
Where did your display go? Few western homes have anything
resembling the tokonoma (and I suspect that MOST Japanese homes
are the same, these days). Was it a centerpiece of a table?
Against a wall somewhere? In a corner? Entranceway?
-------------------------
Jim,
It is great to have you encourage displays. I know so many who never
display inside and yet it does so much for me and friends enjoy it.
My first and probably most successful display involved removing one small
sofa from the living room to the bedroom, leaving a space in a corner of the
room with windows on each side of the corner. Good for light on the
tree/trees I hoped. I bought a four panel shoji screen - all white to
improve lighting - used a coffee table with several oriental table mats as a
cover and put a maple and a suiseki stone on it. That was as far as I could
take it at that time, but it was so much the center of attention in the
room, to my guests and such a pleasure just for the household that I could
not stop displaying from then on.
The four panel screen had two panels as a back and two panels were the
sides which wing out slightly to avoid it looking too boxy. Later I found
that shortening the heighth of the screen some made the proportions look a
little more like a Golden Mean proportion, and had a better relationship to
the table display.
Since then I have been through numerous make-shift (if you wish to call
it that) methods of having a display. Once people saw one they expected it
thereafter. That is rewarding. They are beginning to know certain trees of
mine. They also notice the rock suiseki and are now asking questions about
it, too. When I am short of time I have just put a Bonsai book or magazine
beside the tree because some will pick it up and look at it. And, yes,
it has brought some people into a definite interest. When it does that I
help them pot up their first bonsai.
BTW, you can hang a scroll on the panels in back if wanted. My light
through windows made that impossible, but against another wall I learned to
attach a backing to the scroll and it was suitable to hide the panel's
cross-member shapes.
Another display I have used for summer months is made with an oriental 3
panel small screen probably designed for hanging on the wall, that fits
across the front of the fireplace, leaving the hearth ledge in front to
place a tree or in this situation I like saikei or a forest planting.
I always use suiseki with a display because the two together make a natural
pair, enhancing the idea of nature.
I wish you good results; I think your idea is the greatest - and you
will encourage some real pleasure for both the bonsaists and their friends.
Lynn
Lynn Boyd, Oregon, USA
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