In Smokes Head

[Smoke]

This question popped up in a recent thread. I really love the question as it allows me to talk about my favorite person. (at least that's what I'm told)

A well executed pine style elm. You make reference to this style quite a bit in several of your posts over numerous trees: elms & tridents especially, often, so I perceive, in a disparaging manner.

So I wanted to ask you if this opinion was wrong and you preferred this style to the classic 'up and out' approach?

We all have a 'default' way of building branches. Would you say that this style is your normal way of hanging a branch structure on a tree or do you prefer others in your collection with a more naturalistic 'freer' approach?

So...allow me to talk about my history a little. The easy answer is I like both styles, but for different reasons. Allow me to elaborate. 35 years ago when I started doing bonsai I bought material that I could afford. I worked on them and tried to improve them but really made very little progress. I just went with the tree and what the tree had to offer. It seemed to style me so to speak. Here are a few bonsai from the archives scanned from photo's. Before digital camera's.

My first bonsai, a cedar



Then I went on to try a few junipers and pines. OMG what was I thinking. This was also one of my first tries at building a bonsai stand.




Ok actually the stand above was a few years later. This stand was one of the first. This was also my first dabble into bonsai pottery.



Around 1994 I met Glenn VanWinkle. A local grower of bonsai material and went by the name of Ripsgreentree many years ago. Some may remember him. Some may also remember our very small disagreements we had. Anyone that thinks I am that much different in person has not met me. Trust me, try to bull shit me and I will call you on it!! We were VERY , very good friends and are to this day.

Well anyway, he sold me a pine tree. Told me it was absolute best material he had ever seen. I worked on it and toyed with it and never really got it to look like anything that met the mental model of what bonsai should look like. What is a mental model? Well a Mental Model is something that jars your brain and causes it to stick in your mental memory bank. It could be a beautiful woman ( you hope to marry), it could be a car you hope to have one day or it may be an image you see on a Bonsai calendar in a nursery. If that bonsai you see has enough wow factor it may stay with you the rest of your life. Subconsciously you may compare every tree you see with the one embedded in your memory bank. Until that day arrives that a new tree becomes your mental model. What anyone else thinks means nothing. And it shouldn't. Appreciating bonsai is a very personal thing and should be treated like art which is also very personal.

I had the pine tree for a few years. Decandle here prune there. Never really making this tree fit what I had in mind. In 1996 I decided to take the plunge and really work in uncharted territory as far as bonsai is concerned. I was going to make this tree into something that I felt looked like a bonsai.

The material


The tree was healthy and I figured now was as good a time as any so I went on to create my first masterpiece. Another Al Keppler stand and pot on this as well.



In looking back on this piece I can see so many mistakes that I made from planting too high to not spending enough time developing and wiring an apex. What it did do for me was make a change in my brain that I could manipulate a tree and I didn't have to settle with what I bought, but could buy for the best attributes and remove the crappy parts and use the best parts. Make the smallest and best tree from the material. (that's a key take away here) Maybe that tall juniper above would have been better had I made a tree out of the lower third and just removed all that crappy long untapering trunk line. Made a canopy from that long bottom left branch, Removed or shortened those long jins and built the tree right on top of the trunk. Reduced the whole tree by two thirds at least? Who knows? I wasn't into shohin then.

Let me answer by breaking this up.

A well executed pine style elm. You make reference to this style quite a bit in several of your posts over numerous trees: elms & tridents especially, often, so I perceive, in a disparaging manner.

I only speak disparaging about it from a "grower point of view". If I had been a grower of elms and maples twenty years ago I would grow them much like most are grown today. Plant liner, wire and twist it. let it grow. Come back in a few years and prune it back to a new strong leader and grow for taper. Repeat over a few years and develop a really great tapering trunk that lack and character for a maple bonsai.

So I wanted to ask you if this opinion was wrong and you preferred this style to the classic 'up and out' approach?

Well I can only answer in the manner in which I do bonsai. I look for interesting trunks and then purchase them and try to make an acceptable tree. There are some that like to start with cuttings or seedlings, and then their are some that want to buy a semi finished tree and refine it. I don't wish to waste the time waiting for the trunk, but do love the "hanging branches" part of the process. The trunk I purchase will determine what kind of branches I hang.

We all have a 'default' way of building branches. Would you say that this style is your normal way of hanging a branch structure on a tree or do you prefer others in your collection with a more naturalistic 'freer' approach?

I love both and have both. A bonsai forum does not really allow one to see into the whole collection one may have at their home. You can only judge me by what I post and allow you to see.

 

[Smoke]

If one were to come into my backyard they would see all kinds of trees in all states of manufacture. I have many maples with "up and out" branch structures.

 

[Smoke]

As well as elms.

 

[Smoke]

Now lets talk about the disparaging part. I would love to see growers pay a little more attention to the way deciduous trees grow. It is very hard as a grower to grow trees like that. Healing wounds keeping hundreds of maples pruned in the growing season and keeping branching under control. That would make the price of that kind of material very expensive indeed. So what we get is boring, tapering one trunk wonders that seem like pine trees and require the ole tried and true first branch, second branch, back branch formula. Don't get me wrong I still love the trees styled like that, and I love the up and out trees. I appreciate them differently because of the specialized work that goes into creating both.

This may be what we want ( I did )



But this may be all that is available on a mass scale, (cause its easy)



So I grafted six together to get the above tree. Simple. I didn't have the skills to do that twenty years ago, much less see it.

 

[Smoke]

In fact I recently, (like Thursday) purchased all of these. Two tridents, cork elm, and a crabapple.

Notice anything similar about the four? What's an artist to do?

Trust me I have a plan. All coming to Smoke and Mirrors soon.



Check out the mirror image in two species. I have never seen a crab apple nor elm grow like this in nature. Yet both of these trunks can produce a very beautiful bonsai tree in time. One just has to appreciate it for what it is. A representation of ones mind I guess.

 

[Paulpash]

@Smoke Thank you very much for the reply. Hope you had a good Christmas.

 

[milehigh_7]

Looking good!

 

[Smoke]

@Smoke Thank you very much for the reply. Hope you had a good Christmas.

I did. Thanks, Happy New Year to all.

 

[Paulpash]

In fact I recently, (like Thursday) purchased all of these. Two tridents, cork elm, and a crabapple.

Notice anything similar about the four? What's an artist to do?

Trust me I have a plan. All coming to Smoke and Mirrors soon.

View attachment 221556View attachment 221557View attachment 221558View attachment 221559

Check out the mirror image in two species. I have never seen a crab apple nor elm grow like this in nature. Yet both of these trunks can produce a very beautiful bonsai tree in time. One just has to appreciate it for what it is. A representation of ones mind I guess.

View attachment 221560View attachment 221561

The crab is really interesting as it's the most challenging of those trees to hang a branch structure on. Tag me in it if you decide to update - I'm doing my own after a chop & upper trunk regrow - good to compare notes.

 

[Victorim]

Haha... When did you two make up?

nice work as always Al.

 

[Smoke]

The crab is really interesting as it's the most challenging of those trees to hang a branch structure on. Tag me in it if you decide to update - I'm doing my own after a chop & upper trunk regrow - good to compare notes.

I will. In your opinion, what choice do I have with that trunk shape?

 

[Smoke]

Haha... When did you two make up?

nice work as always Al.

Cute?

 

[Smoke]

I feel this may also be a good time to lay to rest the misconceptions about where I live and these so called factions? Adair may think he knows me. He doesn't. I would never think I know enough about a person here as to take a stab at what makes them tick.

Smoke and I have had our disagreements on this forum, but I will say that I have met him personally, and he, and his late wife, were absolutely charming in person. He did share with me that he likes to come here and “stir the pot”. So, part of his purpose of posting is to ignite a thread.

I do, and if you are a long time reader of my posts one can see that I love to ask probing questions. It goes back to my operations manager days when I used to hire and fire lots of people. I may ask a question of only a few words. It only requires a yes or no answer most of the time. What ensues is akin to WWIII sometimes, not my fault people.

As for his bonsai, I have not had the opportunity to see any of his bonsai personally. He primarily does trident maple, and he makes them from raw scratch. I have seen lots of pictures of his trees. I’ve seen better ones, but they’ve generally been imported. There really are not that many really good “born in the USA tridents”. Yet. Tridents, and all deciduous really, take a very long time to develop. So, Smoke does very well with tridents.

Not even close. I may post a lot of maples, but that's because I get pretty fast results with the species and have something to post. If my collection were all pines and junipers I might post more infrequently and never really show many trees at all, like many here. Currently my collection numbers 100 trees, 26 of which are trident, and 6 are Japanese maples. Closer to 30 percent of my collection. I don't do "primarily tridents" I do primarily post tridents. BTW I have a good many pines, in fact lots more than juniper. Pine and juniper probably make up another third and Pyracantha, elms, and hornbeam make up the other third.

Now, I’ll have to say this:

It appears to me that California bonsai is broken into two factions: Southern California, and Northern California. The SoCal faction appears to still hang on to the legacy of the US bonsai pioneers, Naka and Oki, et al. The NorCal folk are more influenced by the people who have studied in Japan and have returned. (I know I’m making gross generalizations.). But at any rate, the two factions really don’t get along very well.

California is 1040 miles long. It takes about 20 hours or more to drive it'a length. I live in the middle of the state. I went to grammar school in a town called "Centerville". It was considered the geographical center of the State for a long time until GPS, which found that the center was in North Fork about 40 miles from Centerville and about 20 miles from Yosemite. I know many of the early pioneers of bonsai personally from Southern California. I also know some of the Bay area people. Lets talk about these so called "Factions" for a moment.

Lets go back to the infancy of bonsai in America. Many early Military people that came home from occupation in Japan brought back the tales of the little trees. California was a very different place in 1941. Japan had attacked the USA on our lands and entered that war days later. For safety reasons, not only for Americans, but for the safety of the Japanese Americans living here it was decided that they should relocate to places of safety. The Govt designated internment camps for the Japanese American to relocate to. I won't sugar coat it, it was a terrible time in American history. Most of California was relocated to two camps. One was in California the other in Colorado. From about Fresno north, was located to Manzanar on the Nevada side of the Sierra's. The rest of the Southern state was located to Granada Colorado. Deep lasting and very personal relationships were cemented together at these two camps. The Colorado camp had the likes of John Naka, Frank Moriguchi, Kaz Yonada, Umenori Hatanaka, Harry Hirao' Kahn Komai. and Roy Nagatoshi. Kahn Komai and John Naka along with Tochi Domoto would hold the first bonsai show in the internment camp in Colorado. I don't know too much history of bonsai in the North, because frankly bonsai in the North is relatively young. There are no "factions' in California. Until the Central California Collection was started about ten years ago the South had a collection, and the North had a collection. Each year, because the state is so large and really the concentrations are in the south and the Bay area where the collections are, it was decided that a way to raise funds for the collections was needed. This was the beginnings of GSBF ( Golden State Bonsai Federation and the mother ship of ABS) This Federation would hold a yearly convention to raise money for the collections. North one year, South the next. The monies raised at these conventions would go to the collections. As the collections grew, more monies were needed and so the two swapmeets were started. The "Mammoth Bazzar" in the North and the "Bonsai-A-Thon" in the south. I have no idea what the Collection here is doing it seems to change monthly!!!

Smoke belongs to the SoCal faction. Or so it appears to me. I find it interesting that Smoke was a friend of Ryan Neil back in the day, before he went to Japan. I think Ryan lived in SoCal for a time? Anyway, Smoke has written about sitting next to Ryan at club meetings and teaching Ryan stuff back in the day. Currently, Smoke doesn’t have much good to say about Ryan. I suppose he feels that Ryan “changed factions” now that Ryan considers Kimura his teacher. "I dunno".

AL KEPPLER BELONGS TO NO FACTION. THAT IS THE MOST SILLY THING i HAVE EVER HEARD.
Ryan has never belonged to a "Faction". I have never heard that before and I have never even read that here before and have no idea where this nonsense came from. I did sit with Ryan early while Ryan was going to Cal Poly for his Horticulture studies. I don't remember Ryan ever living in So cal. I don't care in the least who Ryan studied with. Maybe I just know Ryan as more of a "good ole boy" and all this hype about the man rubs me the wrong way. He just pulls his pants on one leg at a time just like I do. I have seen his work up close and personal and trust me he has his share of failures just like any of you practicing bonsai. In fact I would go so far to believe that if given the total access to the materials that he has many of the people right here on this forum could do the same as Ryan does. He is not Bonsai God. Just a guy with a hell of a marketing machine (money, thats all I'll say) behind him. IMO, Kenji Miyata could bonsai circles around Ryan, many of you don't even know who Kenji is. I think the part above in red is critical.

Now that I’ve gone on too long about this, let me just say there is no one way to do bonsai. Each of us have different goals of what we want bonsai to be. What we want our bonsai to look like. @Cadillactaste like hot messes of roots. I like pines. Smoke likes tridents. @MACH5 likes deciduous. @Mellow Mullet likes azalea. @Dav4 likes dropped branches. @Vance Wood likes Mugo. We all started as beginners, no one is born a bonsai master. We all have tried using poor material that we didn’t know was poor material. And we’ve learned from our mistakes. All we’re trying to do is share the knowledge to save others some time on the learning curve.

I hope I addressed most of this above by stating that I "post lots of tridents" but that is not my focus.

My only mention of the “factions” is it may help explain some of Smoke’s attitude.

One of the keys to success at bonsai is to grow trees that are suitable for your climate. Of course native trees would be, but trees from around the world, if from a similiar climate, would work, too.

Factions has absolutely nothing to do with my attitude. I visit all the shows, the conventions freely and have many very valuable friends all over the state.

I think the big take away from this last part is the part I highlighted. If your sharp and read my list in my collection, you will understand my love of tridents. They are easy to grow, easy to train and thrive in my climate, as does juniper, elm, pine and pyracantha. My all time favorite is a good Japanese Maple. They will not grow well here, just too damn hot. The trident works in its place. Is it as graceful as the Japanese variety, no. But you have to work with what grows best for you.

 

[Adair M]

Smoke, that was an interesting history lesson. I was not aware of a Colorado internment camp.

Other than our brief meeting a few years ago, all I know of you is thru your posts here. Since you post primarily maples, tridents in particular, I was led (falsely so it seems) they were your primary interest.

You say that I don’t know you. I suppose that’s true, all I know of you is through your posts here.

Yet, how does one know anyone they don’t spend time with IRL? I don’t think my impression of you is greatly different than other readers of this forum. All we have is what you have written.

At any rate, I hope you had a nice Christmas, and I do wish you well for the coming year. I hope you have as much fun messing with your little trees as I do messing with mine! Although from the sound of things you have about 4 times as many! So I guess you have 4 times more fun. Lol!!!

By the way? What brought this on? The reference to a “pine shaped” elm? Because I primarily do pines? (Which is true!)

 

[Paulpash]

I will. In your opinion, what choice do I have with that trunk shape?

Twisted & rising. You have nice pronounced movement in the trunk I think should be echoed in the branching.

 

[Wires_Guy_wires]

That's some interesting US history. I bet there's more where that came from Al. Is there a public place or a book where we can read about that?

 

[Smoke]

By the way? What brought this on? The reference to a “pine shaped” elm? Because I primarily do pines? (Which is true!)

I guess the need by you to somehow explain my attitude. I have a hard enough time on my own without someone adding to the story about belonging to a faction, and Ryan belonging to a faction and then changing sides and that I would even care. I might ask you, who told you this crap?

You and I do bonsai. I do bonsai on a budget. You do bonsai on a whole nother level. You spend lots of money to buy something much more finished and then refine it. I don't see you posting very much here about starting from nursery material, or cutting all the branches off a maple and starting over. I don't frankly see much of that at all around here. I post a lot of this kind of thing because that is where this forum is at. They are working with nursery material, stuff dug from the neighbors house, and cuttings they started last summer.

Needle pulling and pinching and how to decandle are great bonsai aids, for someone with a pine at the point that any of that matters. Information here has to be geared towards it's audience. While many here will applaud the information that you share, me included, it's not worth arguing about something that a person here will need for another ten years.

What people need here is how to proceed with pulling that ugly piece of shit pine out of the old 5 gallon nursery can. How to pick a trunk line and when to leave it at the nursery. How to pick branches by size and taper and which ones are really the good ones (the small two inch long branch rather then the established 6 inch long branch that can't be trained) and which ones are the poor ones. Posting all that kind of stuff here is time consuming and requires a lot of photo's taken thru out a trees history. Sorting those photos and placing them in the text. Writing the whole thing in Word and cutting and pasting here so it makes sense. Anyone can come here and poke fun at someone and poke holes in their story.

But I do have stories here. I post the pictures of how I do it and try to make it easy for someone else to do it also. I show the "crap in a can" and what I do with it. I do that so someone else doesn't have to spend the next twenty years wasting the twenty I did.

I have done that here with tridents as well as junipers, pines, California junipers, hornbeams, pyracantha, elms and privits. I am not a one hit wonder and work with lots of species. Keep in mind too that this has also been my MO since I started on forums over twenty years ago.

Not to mention step by step how I build bonsai stands and offer a little history of bonsai in California along the way. I didn't even mention my first monthly teachers, bonsai Icons in their own right, Mas Imazuma and Tosh Subamaru. Ask some of your California friends who they are. They spent their formative years in Manzanar.

 

[Adair M]

@Smoke, It’s true that I choose more advanced material to work with. I do because I can. 40 years ago, I, too, messed with sticks in a pot.

I’ve been diagnosed with cancer, twice, and each time I’ve been lucky to have a skilled surgeon allow me to dodge the bullet. So I figure that I may not ever have good trees if I start with long term projects.

Here’s the thing about bonsai. (Well, maybe not THE thing, but it’s A thing. Lol!!). It takes experience to know how to push a tree from one level to the next. And a willingness to jump out of your comfort zone. Let me elaborate...

There’s many people who have been doing bonsai a long time, but they don’t progress. It’s as if they repeat their first year over, and over. They start lots of stuff, but it never gets anywhere.

Why does that happen?

I think (And this is only my opinion) is they don’t know what to do at the “next” level. All they’ve ever worked with is rough stock, what do you do next? So that it becomes “pre-bonsai”?

And then, how to take pre-bonsai up to “bonsai”? And then to “refined bonsai”?

Yes, I agree, the stuff I tend to talk about is the refinement stuff. I’m one of the few on this site that has really refined trees. I’ve posted several threads in the past couple months showing how to finish wire and build pads on several of my pines. Hopefully to show, and inspire others, how it’s done.

I’ve always advocated that those serious in learning bonsai acquire a more advanced tree. Working on better material makes you slow down, think about the process, and see the results of good practices in a reasonably short period of time.

Working with rough stock often means making a few big cuts, then waiting several years to allow the tree to grow back out and create new growth. Which is cut back again! And another couple years must pass before it can be worked a third time. (Depends on the species.)

Working on more advanced material allows one to see how more advanced material behaves. And when trees are ready to move up, the hobbiest has the experience to know what is needed.

You will often see me posting “let it grow” when people post sticks in pots. I’m sure that’s frustrating to hear. But that’s what trees do: grow. Our job to to direct that growth.

Happy New Year

 

[Paulpash]

I think there SHOULD be room for all approaches on a good bonsai forum. I know @Brian Van Fleet is quite similar to how I do bonsai - a lot of grow your own, diy projects (growing trunk and then branches) mixed in with harder to get raw stock; @Smoke buys the trunk and develops the branches; @Adair M does renovation and refinement on more developed stock.

The folk on here can learn lots from each approach as their skills and knowledge improve. There's nothing to stop someone with a little experience doing a mix of all three. We all have varying assets - time, money, aversion to risk, process or product and what point in our life we start the bonsai journey.

 

[Cable]

I agree, there's room for everyone. I'm at the "stick in a pot / nursery stock" level. Posts that address that are immensely helpful to me. But so are the ones about high level refinement because that also helps me to learn and gives me a target to shoot for.

Can't we all just get along??? lol