BillsBayou
Chumono
First, the stone:
I know very little about suiseki, but to me, this looks like a mountain. That would be enough for me to attempt carving a daiza. But I want to use this as a companion stone for displaying bald cypress bonsai.
"But, Bill, bald cypress are in swamps. South Louisiana has no natural stone and certainly no tall craggy mountains!"
The only reasons I would consider using this specific stone with a bald cypress display are:
1) This stone was found within a mile of a North Louisiana swamp where I collected last weekend
2) This stone is petrified wood
The underlying theme of the display would be to emphasize great age. I'd use this stone with any bald cypress where I've trained it to look like an ancient tree. The companion plant would be a bowl containing dwarf horsetail (Equisetum scirpoides) and duckweed. Equisetaceae is a family of living fossils. It's an ancient plant with an ancient looking bonsai and a seriously ancient piece of wood.
To make the display ridiculously tied together, the bonsai pot will be on a large thin disk of a bald cypress trunk, the bowl will be resting on a thin polished piece of petrified wood (I got several pieces last weekend), and the stone's daiza will be carved from a bald cypress knee that has other knees growing from it. You know, so the ancient stone will look like a bald cypress knee.
All I need now are:
1) A large thin disk of a bald cypress trunk large enough to properly hold a bald cypress bonsai pot
2) A thin polished piece of petrified wood made from one of the other pieces I collected last weekend
3) Three knees, grown closely together, where one of the knees is large enough to be the base of the stone and the other two are smaller in height.
4) A bowl
5) Dwarf horsetail
6) A copy carver rig to carve the daiza
Just rambling at this point... the nurse said if I'm good, I get ice cream.
I know very little about suiseki, but to me, this looks like a mountain. That would be enough for me to attempt carving a daiza. But I want to use this as a companion stone for displaying bald cypress bonsai.
"But, Bill, bald cypress are in swamps. South Louisiana has no natural stone and certainly no tall craggy mountains!"
The only reasons I would consider using this specific stone with a bald cypress display are:
1) This stone was found within a mile of a North Louisiana swamp where I collected last weekend
2) This stone is petrified wood
The underlying theme of the display would be to emphasize great age. I'd use this stone with any bald cypress where I've trained it to look like an ancient tree. The companion plant would be a bowl containing dwarf horsetail (Equisetum scirpoides) and duckweed. Equisetaceae is a family of living fossils. It's an ancient plant with an ancient looking bonsai and a seriously ancient piece of wood.
To make the display ridiculously tied together, the bonsai pot will be on a large thin disk of a bald cypress trunk, the bowl will be resting on a thin polished piece of petrified wood (I got several pieces last weekend), and the stone's daiza will be carved from a bald cypress knee that has other knees growing from it. You know, so the ancient stone will look like a bald cypress knee.
All I need now are:
1) A large thin disk of a bald cypress trunk large enough to properly hold a bald cypress bonsai pot
2) A thin polished piece of petrified wood made from one of the other pieces I collected last weekend
3) Three knees, grown closely together, where one of the knees is large enough to be the base of the stone and the other two are smaller in height.
4) A bowl
5) Dwarf horsetail
6) A copy carver rig to carve the daiza
Just rambling at this point... the nurse said if I'm good, I get ice cream.
