Bjorn Bjorholm is in town!

[PaulH]

Thanks in part to a grant from the Golden State Bonsai Federation, Bjorn Bjorholm is in Northern California this week. If you somehow haven't heard of him, Bjorn is a native of Knoxville,Tn who has been an apprentice of Keiichi Fujikawa in Osaka since 2008. He has become well known for his excellent Youtube video series, "Bonsai Art of Japan". He is also co - founder and co - instructor of the Fujikawa International School of Bonsai.
Most of the work Bjorn has done in Japan involves preparation of great trees for the major exhibits in Japan.
Bjorn is skilled, articulate, friendly, and a very interesting demonstrator.
Tuesday night Bjorn demonstrated at the American Bonsai Association of Sacramento on a very challenging large, old California juniper. He had to do some major bending of large branches and transformed the tree into a beauty. The tree was raffled and (Woo-Hoo!) came home with me!

Last night Bjorn did a demo For another of the clubs I belong to, Gold Country Bonsai Club. The subject again was a great California juniper. This tree had been styled before but had grown freely for a number of years and Bjorn Started by saying he wanted to refine the tree to the point that it could be exhibited right away. He succeeded. Though I bought raffle tickets, the tree was won by our club president.

Tomorrow (Saturday) five members of our study group will have an all - day workshop with Bjorn and I can't wait. I plan to take some of my collected Sierra and California junipers to work on with his guidance. Should be a blast.

1. Bjorn at ABAS
2. Gold Country tree before:
3. Gold country tree after:

 

[dick benbow]

was curious as to what the work shops cost with him.

We have Peter tea coming next to our club and $45.00 is cost.

 

[PaulH]

How many in your workshop? We had Peter here last week and the workshop was $600 / 5 of us = $120 each. I think Bjorn will be a little more.

 

[dick benbow]

our cost was based on 8 attendees

 

[reddog]

workshop

our cost was based on 8 attendees

dick, was that for a half day workshop?

 

[dick benbow]

exactly....4 hrs

 

[PaulH]

Workshop today with Bjorn. Spent 9 hours doing detail wiring on my Sierra juniper. Still more to do but its looking good!

 

[Brian Van Fleet]

Nice tree! Would like to see another shot when you finish.
Looking forward to his workshops here in a couple weeks.

 

[Dav4]

Workshop today with Bjorn. Spent 9 hours doing detail wiring on my Sierra juniper. Still more to do but its looking good!

That is a stunning sierra! Did you collect this one yourself? Can't wait to see the finished product.


What's on the floor behind you? Looks like another tree with awesome deadwood.

 

[PaulH]

That is a stunning sierra! Did you collect this one yourself? Can't wait to see the finished product.

Yes, I collected this tree in 2008. I'll start a progression thread once I finish setting all the branches. I literally wired on this tree for 9 hours and its still not done.

What's on the floor behind you? Looks like another tree with awesome deadwood.

That's one of my California junipers. Here's a pic.

 

[PaulH]

Here's my Sierra with current work completed. Spent 9 hours on it yesterday and a couple more today

 

[edprocoat]

Here's my Sierra with current work completed. Spent 9 hours on it yesterday and a couple more today

Beautiful Juniper ! I guess you need a frickin' forklift to move that baby around?

ed