Siberian Elm Clump

[grouper52]

Here’s the Siberian elm thing Vic referred to in her recent post about the juniper I gave Eric. I think Eric had only had this clump scene for a short time. He had questioned his purchase of it, but I thought it might have a lot of potential, and tried to get him to see how it could be made into a nice penjing scene. I asked him to imagine one of those little mud men of the child riding the ox through the deadwood on the ground. My mind thinks that way easily, so I could see it clearly. I think Eric was skeptical or not interested in such scenes - can’t blame him either way. I’m just weird.

There are two clumps in this crudely done composition. I may do something separate with the one on the right, but the lefthand one appeared to have some spectacular deadwood from an old fallen tree, out of which the new “trunks” were growing. The main front-to-back groove in that deadwood is probably an old chainsaw mark, and there are a few smaller ones in the back as well.

What I didn’t know when I was reviewing it with Eric, or when they brought it over, was that most of the spectacular deadwood - the very heart of the appeal this had for me - has been neglected far too long, and is simply crumbling. I don’t blame Eric - until working to preserve it I had no idea how rotten it was. I have done my best to treat it with wood preservative, but I think it is too late, and I doubt the wood will last long enough to still be there when I complete the styling I plan over the next few years, and certainly not long enough to allow me to really do it justice by putting it back in the ground for a number of years while I re-grow major trunk and branch structures.

Still, I like a challenge, and, as Tennyson has Ulysses saying,

“Death closes all; but something ere the end, 
Some work of noble note, may yet be done, 
Not unbecoming men that strove with gods. . . .

. . . . Though much is taken, much abides”

IOW, I’ll see what I can do with it. Anitya: everything passes.

 

[grouper52]

Here is a series of shots of the left clump from various angles, with the ox-riding child in the scene. The figure gives some definition and scale to the scene IMO, as well as giving a clearer sense of the best parts to remove or keep as the styling moves forward. Having said that, it amy also look good or better with a somewhat larger figure. We'll see.

The chops are old and need to be re-worked or removed, and new ones will try to retain deadwood features that improve the natural feeling of the scene. Other scarring and deadwood features may also be added over time.

The wire that came with the composition needed to be re-done, though some was not so bad I didn’t just leave it. I did some preliminary baby bending, but I just love to work with elms through clip-and-grow, and that technique will probably form the bulk of future branch and foliage work.

The crumbling concrete slab will likely be replaced by an actual pot of some sort next season. I’ve never really understood the appeal of slabs anyway, apart from the more formal ones the Chinese use so well.

 

[JudyB]

Have you thought of these clumps at all as two separate entity's? Maybe it's just the distance between the two that throws me. I see something here. I'll be interested in seeing how you move it forward, it certainly has merit. And a lot of work ahead of it and you.

 

[rock]

“Death closes all;

Lets hope later than sooner...eh?

I like Sib elm, lots of bad press on them. I like your idea of separating . almost look like 2 different species any way, am I seeing that right. You have a raft and a clump. Get both in their own training box or sumtin and you will have a have couple niceys in no time. i get 6 feeet of new growth on potted SibElms, 12 feet a year in the ground. Do late season fert and you will minimize winter dieback of branches that for no good reason upandie !

 

[Ang3lfir3]

glad you are up for the challenge ...... besides pruning the tree back often over this growing season I haven't payed much attention to the tree ... tho every time I did I remembered the conversation we had about it .... I hope the epoxy hardener worked decently to preserve some of that wood

I think what baffles me most about this tree... is that I don't really get or understand forest plantings or scenes ..... great ones are evocative for me ... and I love them ...
I have no idea how to create them .... I knew after the conversation we had about it... that this tree would never meet its full potential as some typical bonsai on my benches .... it needed to be Penjing .....

just looking at the photographs you took I can see you have some ideas (and I note you moved a trunk pretty far) ... I expect in just a few years we will see the full extent of what is possible here ...

it is certainly clear.... you have vision ...

 

[grouper52]

Lets hope later than sooner...eh?

I like Sib elm, lots of bad press on them. I like your idea of separating . almost look like 2 different species any way, am I seeing that right. You have a raft and a clump. Get both in their own training box or sumtin and you will have a have couple niceys in no time. i get 6 feeet of new growth on potted SibElms, 12 feet a year in the ground. Do late season fert and you will minimize winter dieback of branchesView attachment 25052 that for no good reason upandie !

Thanks, Rock. Good advice.

Where are you??? I've had growing in the ground for about 6 years and it hasn't done diddly -maybe not a conducive climate here.

 

[grouper52]

Have you thought of these clumps at all as two separate entity's? Maybe it's just the distance between the two that throws me. I see something here. I'll be interested in seeing how you move it forward, it certainly has merit. And a lot of work ahead of it and you.

Hi Judy. I do plan to separate these two, and as rock says these may even be two separate varieties judging from the looks of them at this point. We'll see.

 

[JudyB]

Sorry, I missed that part in your first post. I'm just happy that I see something in the same light that you have. Gives me hope!

 

[edprocoat]

Man that middle picture with the mudmen looks almost identical to a place on teh Caeser Creek lake in Ohio that you can walk down an embanlment and fish from, the place you have the mudman setting is a twin to where you can fish with about a twelve foot drop off to the water. I like it very much, its almost a magical little group as the trees look very real already and when they get the top filled out they will be amazing.

ed

 

[grouper52]

glad you are up for the challenge ...... besides pruning the tree back often over this growing season I haven't payed much attention to the tree ... tho every time I did I remembered the conversation we had about it .... I hope the epoxy hardener worked decently to preserve some of that wood

I think what baffles me most about this tree... is that I don't really get or understand forest plantings or scenes ..... great ones are evocative for me ... and I love them ...
I have no idea how to create them .... I knew after the conversation we had about it... that this tree would never meet its full potential as some typical bonsai on my benches .... it needed to be Penjing .....

just looking at the photographs you took I can see you have some ideas (and I note you moved a trunk pretty far) ... I expect in just a few years we will see the full extent of what is possible here ...

it is certainly clear.... you have vision ...

Vision is one thing - pulling it off is another!!

I think the wood hardener has done what it can do: harden the remaining wood. The problem is that in many areas that are visually important the remaining wood is about the thickness of an egg shell, and a lot less structurally sound. Many little areas just crumbled under the light touch of the brush I was using to apply the hardener, and underneath was just a dirt-like compost of rotten wood down where it's been moist beneath the surface. In other areas the wood remained intact, but was not anchored to anything, and whole thin little sheets of the stuff are just sitting there - perhaps appearing to connect to surrounding structures, but usually not. Still and all, I plan to have fun with this scene, come what may. I just like playing with the form, and don't mind if it never looks all that good. I've already gotten more enjoyment out of it than most can guess.

Like you, I don't get most forest plantings at all. Even the best leave me bored. But, a Chinese Penjing scene is entirely different! I've written about this here or elsewhere before, but let me blither on about it for a while.

One thing that caught my interest when I first found Penjing was a recommendation that one who aspires to practice the art should study landscape painting and poetry as the primary prerequisites. Not horticulture, not pruning, not wiring: Landscape art, and poetry. Chinese landscape art, and Chinese poetry.

Both emphasize the harmony of opposites along many parameters - high and low, smooth and rough, energetic and calm, new and ancient, land and water, etc. And one of the most important areas for such harmony of opposites is the juxtaposition of natural and non-natural, of nature and man. Look at almost any Chinese landscape painting: in a vast panorama of mountains and clouds, still - always - there is some sign of human inhabitance - a small hut down in one corner, or a man in a boat far away up a river, or a path winding through a cleft between peaks, or a monk sitting beside a pavilion along one edge of the scene. Poems, too. Li Bai is not merely narrating some scene from nature, Li Bai is there, missing friends, worried about the road ahead or the onset of winter. To Wang Wei, the ridge is melancholy. Bai Juyi hints at deep memories, long forgotten, from his time on the south river. It is not about nature, nor is it about people - it is about people in nature, the two in harmony, not separate, not at odds.

A Penjing scene has some human presence. It gives human meaning to the scene, human perspective, human interest. Even just a hint of a path, such as I put in my alpine fir penjing: A path? Who has walked along it, and why, and going where, and from where? How long have people lived here? How far to the nearest town? What is the scenery like along the way? A much richer scene to many than a mere clump of trees.

The child riding the ox between the two sets of trunks gives human definition and perspective to this clump. It is no longer just some wild place with an interesting configuration of plants. People live nearby, farmers, and the pace of work is sometimes slow and enjoyable. There is no hard and fast separation of the humans and the surrounding world of nature. They are intertwined. They are in harmony. They are one. The fields are probably a short distance away, just out of sight. The child's family are likely preparing dinner. He, and his friend the ox, can probably smell the spices. They're heading home.

Bringing that to this clump is what I'm after. Wish me luck.

 

[grouper52]

Man that middle picture with the mudmen looks almost identical to a place on teh Caeser Creek lake in Ohio that you can walk down an embanlment and fish from, the place you have the mudman setting is a twin to where you can fish with about a twelve foot drop off to the water. I like it very much, its almost a magical little group as the trees look very real already and when they get the top filled out they will be amazing.

ed

LOL! You and I were typing at the same time -

THAT'S what I'm talking about: A mud man of a guy fishing would give everyone the same sense you have of that scene, even though they've never been there before!

 

[edprocoat]

Grouper I think about this all the time, yet I have never known it to be a style or technique before I came to this site and read some about penjing. My main drawback is the oriental aspect of it, I posted a thread here earlier about american mudmen as I can not envision chinese figures in a scene, even in my tropicals. Someone suggested model railroad figures, they are often toy-like in appearance with bright colors etc. I have been trying to find some of the old cowboy/indian figurines, the small plastic ones you used to see in the bag with horses and teepees and a pot hanging on a tripod, this stuff could be painted a muted color with a different muted color for contrast such as you see in the mudmen scenes, this to me would bring to my mind images of early america, although I can not find this stuff anywhere. It seems the video games and electronics are the popular playthings of todays youth, that and figurines of superheroes and star wars. Another thing you mentioned is a path or a road through a scene which I have done in the past and it translates well to me, I leave them empty much for the same reasons you wrote about above, it leaves me free to imagine who might have trodden there.

ed

 

[mat]

Here are some. They're toy-like, but they do look like good American fishermen. http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/psr/psr10077.htm?source=froogle

 

[daygan]

Someone suggested model railroad figures, they are often toy-like in appearance with bright colors etc. I have been trying to find some of the old cowboy/indian figurines, the small plastic ones you used to see in the bag with horses and teepees and a pot hanging on a tripod, this stuff could be painted a muted color with a different muted color for contrast such as you see in the mudmen scenes, this to me would bring to my mind images of early america

Cool thinking. Your idea brings a smile to my face. It's one of those obvious solutions that people sometimes just don't think of because the neon lights of tradition distract us from our own perfectly good devices.

 

[edprocoat]

Here are some. They're toy-like, but they do look like good American fishermen. http://www.hobbylinc.com/htm/psr/psr10077.htm?source=froogle

Mat, somebody maybe it was you sent me too this site in an earlier thread i posted on this subject. i emailed the place asking them the size of HO scale figurines and they never responded. Are you familiar with how big these things are? I can not gauge from the pics, they could be 1 or 10 inches tall fro all I know. I keep looking for a model railroad shop, it seems I used to see these stores and now they are gone, i remember one not far from me that is now a new bank branch.

ed

 

[JudyB]

Thanks G52 for the insight into what penjing is about. Although I appreciate it as a form, when I get a chance to see it, I did not understand it in the way I see it is meant to be. I have some artwork, that now I see is penjing in it's form. And I "get" it now. Have you decided if you're going to do a book on this subject? You've really stirred my interest in seeing more of it, and it's hard to find out there.

 

[grouper52]

Hi Judy. Robert Cho was the one who approached me about writing/photographing the book, promising to coordinate my efforts with important bonsai people in China who could help. He left for a business trip to China shortly after we discussed it. Just before he left, our conversation about the book had been much on my mind, so I sent him an email with a number of questions and thoughts about the book for him to think about on the trip, and so he could ask his connections over there about some of the help and coordination I might need from that side. He returned my email while waiting for his plane, very exited it seemed, eager to talk to people in China about these various things, etc. Said he'd get back to me soon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . .

That was several months ago. My enthusiasm for that sort of huge project is already tempered by many factors, even without such silence. Whatever the lack of response means, it means I'm probably not writing the book.

 

[JudyB]

That's understandable, but I for one am sorry to hear it. I'm sure it's a huge commitment of time and energy, and lack of support is draining.
Have you a list of any books on the subject that are actually available (and somewhat affordable) here in the states? You may have posted them before here, pardon if I'm asking you to duplicate...

 

[daygan]

grouper52, sorry to sidetrack the thread for this one last thing for ed - I googled HO-scale which is what all those figures are based on - it's 3.5 mm to 1 foot. So a 6-foot man would be 21 mm, or 0.826772 inches.

 

[edprocoat]

Grouper, from what I see in pictures of those who own or work on Bonsai in the east it seems they are mostly senior citizens. I would bet they feel they are either too old or do not have the time to engage in such an endeavor, which is a shame. Personally I would love to see a book with an American, or at least a western take on the artform. It would seem that those in Holland might use people in wooden shoes like the kissing dutch kids, while the english could use a knight or a robin hood figure as the french could use the images from the napoleonic era. These would be along teh contemplative lines of the old mudmen figures you see in Penjing, images from their past which add depth and the illusion of a tree from a bygone era. But then again, what do I knwo, thats why you need to write a book.

ed