The Bonsai Blog of Hans Van Meer

On 7 and 8 June, the annual meeting of the Danish Bonsai Association was held in Aalborg, in Northern Jutland (Denmark). I was invited to do a demonstration on the Saturday and a workshop on the Sunday. After just a short flight, I arrived early in the afternoon on the Friday before the event, in Copenhagen airport. I was picked up by my bonsai friend Klaus Buddig and together we started the 5 hour trip to the North of Denmark. Which included a 45 minute catamaran ferry crossing to Jutland. This boot trip was anticipated by me with some horror, because I get seasick even writing about it! But I have to admit it was a lot of fun to race across the water on this bed out of hell! And I have to be honest: there is not much that 2 beer cant fix!

Above picture: me on the back of this large speed boat (the things I have to go trough for this hobby).

Left picture: Klaus Buddig relaxing on the back of the boat.

Right picture: Those mighty twin turbines, created a water spray over 30 meters long, leaving a foam trail that can be seen from a airplane!

After a long but pleasant drive, during which, many bonsai talk was spoken, we arrived in Aalborg, one of the main city’s in Northern Jutland. The TOMTOM brought use safe to the “Huset” (which means “The House”) were this event would take place. My dear friend Morten Albek showed use were to park behind the large old building and after we sad our Halloo’s, he let use trough a big old gate into a big courtyard like square, that was completely surrounded by this beautiful ocker colored square shaped building. We arrived right around diner time and the smell of the barbecue that was going on made my mouth water, but first a beer! There was a large stage were musicians were setting up there instruments for the show that would start in a few hours and in frond of that stage, scattered arround the square, local people were having a nice diner, sitting under old Linden trees, that were planted in a circle (like a donut). These stunning trees provided some picturesque shades in the setting sun light and having your diner under need them observing the atmosphere of the place wile listening to some light Jazz and Blues was a real tread for me! It proved to be a great start to a great weekend.

The “Huset” picturesque inner courtyard seen from above. I shoot this picture from a window were the Shohin exhibition was staged.

Left picture: The local folks enjoying a lovely diner, wile waiting for the band to start playing.

Right picture: How nice it that on a warm summers night?! 

Both pictures above were shoot by me from the Aalborg camping, not a bad place either!

After the diner and some light refreshments, we only had to drive a couple of minutes to reach the ”Aalborg Camping” were we all would stay during this weekend. After we enjoyed some more refreshments while sitting outside in the still setting sun, we all went to bed tired. Next day, it was early out of bed to enjoy a lovely breakfast and then it was of to the “Huset” to start the show!

*Picture right: Just before the doors for the public were opened, Ljunberg a very lovely and talented new potter preparing here first ever display aria.

Picture left: A equally lovely friend that helped here during the weekend.

Above picture: This is the tent were the new talent competition was held. It was next to the tent were I was giving my demonstrating, so every now and than I could catch a glimpse of all those eager, enthusiastic and nervous bonsai lovers at work. This made me smile and it worked very inspiring for me. 

The new talent contest winner was a very new talent, Julie Isager from Keyaki Bonsai Club in Copenhagen. Julie is 26 years old, and started to practice bonsai only six months ago. She is a student of my friend Klaus Buddig. The second place was taken by Finn Christensen from the bonsai club Kita in Aalborg. (No third places was chosen, only first and second).

* Above picture: Here I am posing with Klaus Buddig in frond of his Yamadori Pinus Sylvestris he so kindly entrusted to me to demonstrate on. In the middle you can see the design I made for this future Bonsai.

*Left picture: The design I made for this old pine.

*Right picture:Explaining my plains to the audience.

*Above picture: Concentrated at work.

*Above picture: It is always nice to have a extra pair off hands! Erling Klysner did a great job helping me wiring the top and bending it into place. So we could all go to diner in time!

*Left picture: Working on the future top.

*Right picture: The finished pre bonsai for now. The cascading branch, needs a sharper bend to the right, just were it appears from behind the main trunk! But because this is it first styling and the branch had come such a long way from were it was originally before all the works started, that this will be don in the future, when the tree is fully recovered from all this stress! The trees health should always come first even in demonstrations!

* Above picture: And than there was Coffey!

On the Saturday I had the hard task of judging the bonsai on display in the show. And during the diner I was invited on stage to present the award and give some comments to all the winners. I myself was honored with some lovely words and a bottle of some of the best Cognac I ever sipped (half empty already)! The sure made me feel very much at home here, really special people indeed! 

Above picture: During a break in the gala diner on the Saturday night, a proud Morten Albek received the first price award for the best Shohin composition in show.

Winner of the best bonsai in show was won by Martin Nielsen with a beautiful Juniperus chinensis.

I had a couple of hours to kill, Before the Sunday workshops would begin. So Lona Rasmussen asked me, if I would style one off here Yamadori Pinus Sylvestris, she brought along for here own first demo, she would give that afternoon. So wile everybody was busy for a few hours at the annual club meeting on the other side of the venue, I had some nice quiet bonsai time on my own, wile working on here tree in the morning sun with some coffee.

*Picture above: The tent were the Sunday workshop was held.

*Left picture:

*Right picture: Here I am working together with Julie Isager on here Yew, she is the winner of the new talent competition. I am sure she has a bright future ahead of her!

*Left picture:

Right picture: Peter Landerloos working concentrated on his Pine.

*Above pictures: During the workshop, Klaus Buddig enjoyed himself very much wile working on the deadwood of his Pine.

Here are the links to the site of the Danish Bonsai association were you can see more pictures of the event, my demo and workshop.

http://www.bonsai-danmark.dk/BILLEDERDBS-2008-demo.htm

http://www.bonsai-danmark.dk/BILLEDERDBS-2008.htm

*Pictures with starr by: Morten Albek.

Hans van Meer.

This Larch lost a lot of it’s branches during a unusual long period of extremely hot weather in early Summer 2 seasons ago. So last year I repotted it in a (to) large pot, so it could regain its strength and it did. I left the dead branches on the tree, because they actually tell the story that I was meaning to show in this creation from the start. A image of a old tree high on the mountain, bettered by strong winds, snow and dry head during the short summers. Almost falling in to the debts below it, but still clinging on to the rock’s, not willing to give in!

I hope you like it,

Hans.

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Here are some pic’s of the guy’s (Eric Sanders and Ed van der Reek) at work on the trees they brought along.

ED (in front) and Eric hard at work. Before any real styling can be don the trees need to be cleaned out, so Ed is removing the old needles from his Pinus Sylvestris and Eric is thinning out and is removing unwanted foliage and small branches from his Chamaecyparis.

After carefully checking out the right lower branch, Eric had decided it has to go and with out hesitation he cuts it of!

Ed wiring the hole tree, were the the main trunk had to be bended severely, to give it more movement and to make it more compact. He protected the trunk, with in water soaked raffia rapped tightly around it. In picture 2: The lowest (right) section of this tree is already more or less in the desired place, now Ed can start styling the top section.

Double chin, MOI? No!      Picture 2: Looking better and better!

Pinus Sylvestris and Juniperus Sargantii by Ed van der Reek. The Juniperus had it’s second (touch up) styling.

I’ll be back,

Hans van meer.

Saturday May 10.

Day 1:

Sunday May 11.

Day 2.

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THE STORY OF THE “H.O.G” (or, how Rich saw the light! Used it’s force and fell asleep).

You might ask: why is this story in a section of its own? Well because this is a story about courage, stubbornness, hesitation, overcoming to be rewarded! In short: creating a bonsai!

Everybody else walked past this enormous Yew, simply because it was to big! But no, not Richy! Even when everybody said, don’t Rich! it is to big, to heavy and to hard to collect, leave it! This only fired him up to do it any way. Rich is a bit stubborn some times and what he lakes in height, he easily makes up with courage! So he went for it! All alone and for many hours! If you look at the next picture and compare the height of the tree to that of the shovel, you can fully understand the enormous task he had to preform to get this monster Yew out!

GGGRRUZZ! #*#FRRUCKLESS! #*## GGODDSSF!

The above picture is titled:  Yew in front of its new home. Or: How Richy scared the neighbors!

Richy, (with the help of a water jet stream) managed to clean off all of the hardened old soil of the massive roots! But, by doing this, he created a  bid of a mud stream, that because of the sloping street, quickly grew into a all engulfing mudslide! Twiggels, the cat from Misses Brown, from down the street, is still missing! And even furter downtown, many a toilet got clocked up for weeks!

 Saturday, day one. THE PRELUDE.

Left picture: All geared up for the task ahead! MMMMM!

Right picture: Richy concentrated at work on the massive deadwood sections.

Every now and than I jumped in to do a bid!  

                                                                    THE “H.O.G” SQUAT

More pictures cant be found on this next link to “SHADY SIDE BONSAI” .

http://www.shadysidebonsai.com/id122.html

This magnificent statue stood in the entrance of Donna’s studio to greet us.

The original molt of the John Naka bust she made. And a large poster of a stunning Murial, also from here talented hands.

One of the several live size bronze cattle Donna made for the “Red Bird” range. Pic 2: Discussing the possibility of this large yamadori Boxwood that Trent brought along.

Working on the deadwood of Donna’s Kidney wood.

Donna L. Dobberfuhl, MFA, NSS
Sculptural Designs Atelier
1514 Broadway
San Antonio TX 78215
(210) 224-0220
(210) 326-0862
www.sculpturaldesigns.com

      One of the many beautiful views at the Tsugawas Nursery!

Very early in the morning, Jason loading up the Pick up with some nice local yamadori material! Than it is of for the 1 hour drive to the workshop in Woodland Washington.

                                                   Beautiful Baby KOI.

      Ed Imholte working hard on his Ponderosa Pine. 

Here I am posing along with the “Hemlock” that Tony discovered between the abundance of material here at the “Tsugawas” nursery. Tony and I searched hard and than found a lovely little tree hiding some were in all those branches.

          There it is!                                 Top of the world MOM!

                             Joyce’s Ponderosa Pine before and after.     

Jason did good on his Pine, so I rewarded him in the proper way!

Tsugawas Nursery http://www.tsugawanursery.com/

The story that goes along with these pics will be posted soon, together with more of my own shot’s and pictures shot by Irene B. (Mom).

I hope you like it so far,

Hans van Meer.

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                           The entrance to the Portland Japanese garden.

Picture by Jason gambi.

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Hi everybody,

Wow have I got a lot to tell you all! Thursday, 01-05-’08: I left home 5 o’clock in the morning for the 2 hours drive to the airport (Schiphol) in Amsterdam. And after all the security checks I entered my plain that left 10.15, right on time for the 10 hours flight to Portland Oregon. I never flew any longer than 3 hours, so I was a bit nervous for this long flight, bud I have to say that the friendly people on board off this Northwest airplane took good care of me. There was reasonable food and enough to drink and I saw 3 movies to pas the time. We had tailwind and arrived 20 minutes earlier than expected at Portland airport, were we than had to wait for 20 minutes in the airplane, because a German plain arrived just in front of us. GGGRR!!! Because of this the lines to get to true customs were about a mile long and it took almost a hour to finally get to the friendly officer, that must have heart off me, because he wanted to make a picture of me and have my autograph. All my luggage was already waiting for me, so I could walk right out, were Jason was waiting for me. I was so pleased to finally meet him, not in the last place, because he took me right up to the bar for 2 fast pints off there locale beer, that after this long trip really hit the spot! Than we drove in his big ram truck to his house in Saint Helens. I am a big American car lover, and along the way I felt like I was in car haven. All those old and new trucks I saw, were simply amazing. After a hours drive we arrived at Jason’s lovely home.

More to come, when I figured out how to upload pictures! First I am going to have some breakfast!

Well it turned out to be a very long breakfast, indeed! I was just not able to update my blog wile I was there, to tired most of the time or to late in the night or being in a plain for 7 hours again or….well you know? To busy!

So I will try to tell you some story’s to go along with all the pictures I shoot during the many highlight I had, during this, my first trip to the U.S.

Jason took me to Randy’s Knight place (owner of Oregon bonsai), his house had a almost magical appearance to me, this light blue painted house, with beautiful in moss covered gnarly old fruit trees in full bloom, growing in front of it! OH…..And did I mentioned that there were some high quality yamadori trees….well everywhere? No! And there were some high quality yamadori trees….well everywhere! Some of the material there was of unbelievable quality! (see picture above!) Randy was in Canada during my visit to his place, so he was not there to meat me, but I met his beautiful wife and his very funny dog! Randy had mailed me a few days before I left to the U.S and asked me to work on one of his yamadori while I stayed at Jason’s place. He had poet aside about 6 trees for me to choose from. I selected the Pinus ponderosa that we are working on in the next couple of pictures. This small tree had the most interesting movement for me to work with and about the size I like to create, although the only sparsely placed long needles foliage on the end of long thin branches (natural on this species) would not make it any easier for me! This small tree also has a beautiful, but awkward placed root on the right side. This bulky root had a old shari on it and it gives the tree some extra movement, so I wanted to safe that character feature of this old tree, but it was a challenge to incorporate it into the my design and into a future pot!

                                                                No I was not!

                                                           I was concentrating!

             A future Shohin “Pondarosa” in front of Randy’s place.

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                              THE STORY OF THE “TIN FOIL” TREE.

When Jason, on the first day I staid at his place, showed me this mountain Hemlock he collected himself, he told me a story about what happened one day when he showed it to a bonsai college ( I dont know who?) that visit his garden not to long ago. He had looked at this old tree and told Jason: that his Japanese master rated the quality and potential of bonsai material by awarding it with metal, the best being Gold off course! He then told Jason that his “Mountain Hemlock” would be rated “TIN FOIL”! In other words: useless and a waist of time! Hearing this story blow me away and reminded me of some of the arrogance I come across on the European bonsai seen and forums, unbelievable! But this being my first day in the states and in Jason’s place, I had to bite my tong, for now! The next day, when we finished Randy’s Pine and had some beers to break the ice, I told Jason (to his surprise) lets do your “TIN FOIL” tree now! Lets show the world that there are no bad trees, only bad designers!

        The “THIN FOIL” Mountain Hemlock before we started work.

First the tree was cleaned up. all useless and unwanted foliage and branches were removed to get a clearer view of the tree and its branches. And then with the help of a power tool, Jason removed the bulge just below the top that caused a reverse taper. He connected that new piece of deadwood with the beautiful old deadwood on the top, so now, no one would even knottiest there was a “TIN FOIL” mistake there before! In this picture (below) you can see the freshly carved section.

Some branches, especially the one that would become the future top, needed to be bend severely! So they were protected with in water soaked raffia and heavy copper wire.

Wiring the main branches and still removing unwanted branches wile we moved along the whole tree.

          Here the new top is almost into place.

With the help of a heavy branch bender the last branch is brought into its place and then secured with a copper wire. To make up for the lack of trunk movement, the tree is tilted to the left to give it more movement and make it more dynamic and interesting.

The final image of the “THIN FOIL” Mountain Hemlock. I wonder if we should change it name?!

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More to come!!!

Hans van Meer.

Boy am I exited, in less than 24 hours I will take off for my first Bonsai trip in the U.S.A.! First I will fly to Portland Oregon to finally meet up with my friend Jason! He is the initiative taker and organizer of this tour and with out whom non of this all would be happening! On May 3th, I will be doing a workshop there and on the other days I will be working with the help of Jason on some of the best material I have ever seen at Randy Knight’s place “OREGON BONSAI”! Jason will also take me up in the mountains (if the weather allows it) to enjoy the wonderful nature of this aria. I will be a guest at Jason’s family place until the May 6th. Than I will make the long flight to San Antonio Texas, to meet up with my Internet MOM, Irene B. I will be a guest at here place until May 9th. I will do a workshop there on May 7th and the next day Irene and her Hubby will take me up to ”LOST MAPLES” and “GARNER STATE PARK” to enjoy some of the most beautiful places in Texas! On the 9th of May, I will fly up to Baltimore Maryland, to meet Up with my friend Tom from “SHADY SIDE BONSAI”. I will do 2 workshops there and I might do a evening demo during the BBQ (if there is enough beer off course). Tom will show me some nice aria’s of his state on the days left and I might even ride on one of his horses (poor horse!). I will be flying back home again on the 13th of may. During my stay in the U.S. I will be taking tons of pictures, that, together with some short story’s I will try to post here on my blog on a daily basis. So If you are interested in my U.S. Bonsai adventurers, check out this blog in the coming 2 weeks! I am so looking forward to meet up and work with my new overseas friends!!!

See you all soon,

Hans van Meer.