Dale Cochoy
Shohin
Some of the older bonsai enthusiasts in the group may have seen me around for quite a few years, but I am probably a new face to many on the talk groups.
A brief bit of my History:
I first started studying bonsai in 1978 when I had purchased a few bonsai for my wife who had seen pictures of some in a magazine article and had liked them. After the few we had began to suffer or die I decided I needed to learn how to take care of them. This was the beginning of a journey that has carried me through 30 years of my life.
In 1979 I began to work at General Electric Medical Systems and I found that a work buddy of mine had been doing bonsai for 3 years. He and I began working together and collecting North American trees together in the early 80's and collected retail material well into the late 90's. I studied bonsai with an accepted USA master during the mid-80's. Local bonsai club people at the Cleveland Bonsai Club kept asking us to sell our collected stock so we started a part-time business in 1989 and named it Wild Things Bonsai Nursery. My partner and I traveled to as many symposiums/conventions as we could while still working full time servicing medical x-ray equipment. We sold mainly rough stock we had collected and imported Japanese and Chinese trees. Our collected NE Ohio trees were used in MANY workshops and demos around the eastern USA.
We were also local distributors for an importer out of New York state who brought in Chinese trees and bonsai pots. We did this for a couple years .
In 1994 I bought out my partner and began to build a bonsai business full time. I renamed it Wild Things Bonsai Studio. I had a beautiful studio in a nearby town where I rented out half of an existing florist shop. I housed my retail trees in a wonderful old greenhouse that was moved to that site in the early 60's from the old TIMKEN estate near Canton, Ohio. My store carried a full line of trees, pots, tools, books, soil and everything else needed.
I had to leave the studio when the owner of the florist shop decided to drop his lease and the owner of the property sold it to an italian deli.
About this time I decided I needed to change my product line to be more competitive at conventions. I had always had an interest in enhancing the styling of my collected material with power wood carving tools. My old partner (and friend ) and I began to buy and extensively use every type of tool we thought would be good to use on bonsai.
We were great fans of the stylists that were the first we had seen using interesting power wood carving on bonsai. Now the use of such tools is commonplace and we see it at every convention and symposium around the world ,but in the beginning the names that stood out were John Naka, Masahiko Kimura, Pius Notter and Dan Robinson. They were pioneers in this facet of the art and the first that we saw using extensive carving on bonsai stock at conventions..
I decided this was an area I needed to concentrate on in my sales so I began to research and study every type of carving tool available that could be used for bonsai. As time went on I sifted through all the various tools available and began to sell the ones I thought were the best. This has now become a large part of my business and I believe I have the largest selection of quality tools for carving bonsai that is available in the USA.
My selection of power wood carving tools caught the eye of the visiting President of the Korean Bonsai Association while I was vending at the Bonsai International convention in Toronto, Canada in 1997. He personally invited me to vend my tools at the World Bonsai Convention in Seoul, Korea in 1997. I was the only non-Korean vendor at the convention.
I am also the importer and distributor of "Samurai" power carving tools from Europe. My "flagship" carvers are the "Samurai" and "Ninja" line from Europe. I have used everything that I sell. Quality and safety are foremost in my mind concerning the selection of what I sell.
As my interest in selling imported retail trees and commonplace bonsai began to lessen I found my interest was growing in pottery. I had done some pottery in college, and my bonsai teacher did bonsai pots in the winter months. Also, my bonsai buddy and I had made some bonsai pots from molds in the early part of our friendship and bonsai interest. This was always in the back of my mind and interested me so I decided to make some pots for small shohin bonsai. They were all slab built and very time consuming but there seemed to be quite a lot of interest in them so I made more styles and larger pots. It was at this time that I decided I wanted to make contemporay, one-of-a-kind pots. As time went on I began to make bigger pots either slab built or thrown and installed two kilns to fire my own pots. After a few years of making pottery it became so well received at conventions that it slowly became the major part of my business. I had my first honors in this art in 2001 when I won 2nd. place in the "modern" style at the First North American Bonsai Pot Competition that was sponsored by the National Bonsai Foundation and the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum at the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C.
As the pottery portion of the business began to enlarge I decided that the "WildThings" name just didn't fit with pottery so I named the pottery portion of the business "YAKIMONO no KOKORO" which means "Heart ( or soul) of Fired Things" in Japanese. Over the last several years all bonsai pots have been signed with this kanji along with my stylized initials and the date. I now make bonsai pots year around and make many custom pots for bonsai artists every year.
Over the last several years I have slowly reduced bonsai retail stock and now it is actually the smallest part of my business. I found I was taking less and less retail trees to conventions because I was needing most of my vendor space for pottery and carving tools. I also found that the pottery was eating up all my available time which seriously cut into the time I needed to care for a large selection of retail trees, and that I enjoyed the pottery much more than I did retail tree care and maintenance. I still stock retail trees, demo and workshop trees but not in the numbers I did a decade ago. I have done both tree and pottery workshops and demonstrations at clubs and conventions throughout the eastern USA.
I still collect trees when I see something I just have to have but, at 58 years old I have become more.....selective!
I have been the president and vice president of the Cleveland Bonsai Club and I am the Founder of the Akron/Canton Bonsai Society (Ohio) where I have served as president and vice president. I have also served two terms on the board of directors of the American Bonsai Society.
I hope you've enjoyed the short story of the history of WILD THINGS BONSAI STUDIO and YAKIMONO no KOKORO BONSAI POTTERY and I'm looking forward to showing you some of my offerings and my work in the future.
Regards,
Dale Cochoy
Hartville, Ohio
A brief bit of my History:
I first started studying bonsai in 1978 when I had purchased a few bonsai for my wife who had seen pictures of some in a magazine article and had liked them. After the few we had began to suffer or die I decided I needed to learn how to take care of them. This was the beginning of a journey that has carried me through 30 years of my life.
In 1979 I began to work at General Electric Medical Systems and I found that a work buddy of mine had been doing bonsai for 3 years. He and I began working together and collecting North American trees together in the early 80's and collected retail material well into the late 90's. I studied bonsai with an accepted USA master during the mid-80's. Local bonsai club people at the Cleveland Bonsai Club kept asking us to sell our collected stock so we started a part-time business in 1989 and named it Wild Things Bonsai Nursery. My partner and I traveled to as many symposiums/conventions as we could while still working full time servicing medical x-ray equipment. We sold mainly rough stock we had collected and imported Japanese and Chinese trees. Our collected NE Ohio trees were used in MANY workshops and demos around the eastern USA.
We were also local distributors for an importer out of New York state who brought in Chinese trees and bonsai pots. We did this for a couple years .
In 1994 I bought out my partner and began to build a bonsai business full time. I renamed it Wild Things Bonsai Studio. I had a beautiful studio in a nearby town where I rented out half of an existing florist shop. I housed my retail trees in a wonderful old greenhouse that was moved to that site in the early 60's from the old TIMKEN estate near Canton, Ohio. My store carried a full line of trees, pots, tools, books, soil and everything else needed.
I had to leave the studio when the owner of the florist shop decided to drop his lease and the owner of the property sold it to an italian deli.
About this time I decided I needed to change my product line to be more competitive at conventions. I had always had an interest in enhancing the styling of my collected material with power wood carving tools. My old partner (and friend ) and I began to buy and extensively use every type of tool we thought would be good to use on bonsai.
We were great fans of the stylists that were the first we had seen using interesting power wood carving on bonsai. Now the use of such tools is commonplace and we see it at every convention and symposium around the world ,but in the beginning the names that stood out were John Naka, Masahiko Kimura, Pius Notter and Dan Robinson. They were pioneers in this facet of the art and the first that we saw using extensive carving on bonsai stock at conventions..
I decided this was an area I needed to concentrate on in my sales so I began to research and study every type of carving tool available that could be used for bonsai. As time went on I sifted through all the various tools available and began to sell the ones I thought were the best. This has now become a large part of my business and I believe I have the largest selection of quality tools for carving bonsai that is available in the USA.
My selection of power wood carving tools caught the eye of the visiting President of the Korean Bonsai Association while I was vending at the Bonsai International convention in Toronto, Canada in 1997. He personally invited me to vend my tools at the World Bonsai Convention in Seoul, Korea in 1997. I was the only non-Korean vendor at the convention.
I am also the importer and distributor of "Samurai" power carving tools from Europe. My "flagship" carvers are the "Samurai" and "Ninja" line from Europe. I have used everything that I sell. Quality and safety are foremost in my mind concerning the selection of what I sell.
As my interest in selling imported retail trees and commonplace bonsai began to lessen I found my interest was growing in pottery. I had done some pottery in college, and my bonsai teacher did bonsai pots in the winter months. Also, my bonsai buddy and I had made some bonsai pots from molds in the early part of our friendship and bonsai interest. This was always in the back of my mind and interested me so I decided to make some pots for small shohin bonsai. They were all slab built and very time consuming but there seemed to be quite a lot of interest in them so I made more styles and larger pots. It was at this time that I decided I wanted to make contemporay, one-of-a-kind pots. As time went on I began to make bigger pots either slab built or thrown and installed two kilns to fire my own pots. After a few years of making pottery it became so well received at conventions that it slowly became the major part of my business. I had my first honors in this art in 2001 when I won 2nd. place in the "modern" style at the First North American Bonsai Pot Competition that was sponsored by the National Bonsai Foundation and the National Bonsai and Penjing Museum at the National Arboretum in Washington, D.C.
As the pottery portion of the business began to enlarge I decided that the "WildThings" name just didn't fit with pottery so I named the pottery portion of the business "YAKIMONO no KOKORO" which means "Heart ( or soul) of Fired Things" in Japanese. Over the last several years all bonsai pots have been signed with this kanji along with my stylized initials and the date. I now make bonsai pots year around and make many custom pots for bonsai artists every year.
Over the last several years I have slowly reduced bonsai retail stock and now it is actually the smallest part of my business. I found I was taking less and less retail trees to conventions because I was needing most of my vendor space for pottery and carving tools. I also found that the pottery was eating up all my available time which seriously cut into the time I needed to care for a large selection of retail trees, and that I enjoyed the pottery much more than I did retail tree care and maintenance. I still stock retail trees, demo and workshop trees but not in the numbers I did a decade ago. I have done both tree and pottery workshops and demonstrations at clubs and conventions throughout the eastern USA.
I still collect trees when I see something I just have to have but, at 58 years old I have become more.....selective!
I have been the president and vice president of the Cleveland Bonsai Club and I am the Founder of the Akron/Canton Bonsai Society (Ohio) where I have served as president and vice president. I have also served two terms on the board of directors of the American Bonsai Society.
I hope you've enjoyed the short story of the history of WILD THINGS BONSAI STUDIO and YAKIMONO no KOKORO BONSAI POTTERY and I'm looking forward to showing you some of my offerings and my work in the future.
Regards,
Dale Cochoy
Hartville, Ohio
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