Clark Bonsai Collection July, 2020

LOOKING BACK: THE FIRST BONSAI "GLAMOR" PHOTOSHOOT JULY, 2017

Mike Baldwin, professional photographer and one of the first CBCS docents, sets the stage and gives the bonsai the glamor treatment. Visit baldllamaphotos.com if you would like to see more of Mike's photography.

BONSAI TOMODACHI THE CLARK BONSAI COLLECTION NEWSLETTER

CURATOR’S MESSAGE UPCOMING EVENTS Greetings to all, Shinzen Reopens to Members Only July ? Shinzen Opens to the public one week later As the world continues to struggle with COVID-19 so does the Shinzen/CBC. We were CBCS Local Artist Exhibition fully prepared to re-open to visitors on a When Shinzen Opens limited basis starting July 1. Alas it was not to Weekends & Holidays 10am-1pm be. Despite, what felt like to us a considerable Weather & Docent Availability Allowing sacrifice, observing the stringent isolation measures to contain the disease, it was not Visit the CBCS website for updates enough. Infection rates are climbing with no https://gsbfclarkbonsaicollection.org/ end in sight. When we will again be able to Visit the CBCS Youtube channel for video welcome visitors is an open-ended question and none us of like that very much. Being the www.youtube.com/channel/ creatures of habit we are, uncertainty UCEXG_aKul7J9W60veBLvr1A distresses us all. Shinzen Virtual Toro Nagashi August 8 We have all read about folks wigging out over See www.shinzenjapanesegarden.org for more virus restrictions and behaving in ways we just didn’t see and information couldn’t imagine happening a few months ago. As an example, I was Fall Multicultural Faire out to my mailbox this morning and noticed our elderly neighbor lady Tentative date: Oct 25 if large group in deep philosophical discussion with her cat. She carried on as if gatherings are considered safe. the poor cat understood every single word she spoke. I thought to myself that all this isolation protocol had just claimed another victim. I went into the house and told the dog about it, and we both Jack Green had a good laugh. working on Ok, ok, ok…I apologize. COVID-19 is nothing to joke about, but come Sam on folks, all this sack cloth and ashes isn’t going to help much either. Kawaguchi’s Certainly, our lives are different than they were just a few months iconic ago and there is no question that we are going to have to go about Needle things differently than we used to. We take stock, we make Juniper adjustments, comfort those who have experienced tragedy, help forest those less able to help themselves and do what people have always done in difficult times – lean on one another. Continued on page 2 1 Clark Bonsai Collection July, 2020

Curator’s Message continued from page 1 David Soho, curatorial So, what does all of that have to do with the Clark Bonsai team member and FBS Collection in Shinzen Gardens? Much. Although the name past president pruning implies we are a collection of bonsai in a Japanese garden, a landscape maple. the reality is, we are a group of people that maintains a bonsai collection and Japanese garden for the express purpose of benefiting other people. The simple pleasure in working together to offer the tranquil serenity of the gardens and the fascinating mystery of bonsai to others, affords us a measure of emotional shelter against the ill winds of a pandemic that is shaping our lives and that we scarcely have any control over. On this page you can see some of the CBC/Shinzen “family” David Brown, Gold working on the myriad tasks, some mundane yet arduous, Star Docent pruning others complex yet serene, of tending to the gardens and and weeding the the bonsai. All offering satisfaction in contributing the bonsai garden common goal of creating a special place for others to visit landscaping and experience. Although it is a small thing, it makes our lives just a little richer and the realities of COVID-19 a little more tolerable to know that we are making a contribution to the common good and that our efforts will, sometime soon, again bring joy to many. We can’t answer the question of when we will re-open. We hope it will be soon. Until then, we are here, waiting to welcome you back to enjoy the serenity and mystery and Judy Shehady, Shinzen perhaps, in some small measure and for a short time, find and CBCS Docent & shelter for yourself against the winds of adversity. Shinzen Past President pruning the gingkos

A well-protected Mike Saul, curatorial team member and FBS president, working on a five trunk juniper Dwayne Berrett, CBCS & Shinzen Docent, Curatorial Team member, and past president of the FBS and Shinzen weeding in the bonsai garden

Pat Smith (foreground) gives John Naka’s Catlin elm a trim, while Bob HIlvers (background) is wiring Sam Kawaguchi’s prostrata cascade juniper John Wright, curatorial team member performing seasonal grooming on a rare Monterey Pine restyled last year by Ryan Neil

2 Clark Bonsai Collection July, 2020 BONSAI OF THE MONTH: KENNETH RANK, In his Own Words

My roots are in the rural area between Caruthers and Raisin City. These communities are about 20 miles south of Fresno. My father was a farmer, dairyman, and cowboy. From an early age I was taught farming. I was steeped in the fundamentals of agriculture. I worked the family's farmland and dairy (and for other farmers as well) The Chinese Elm cultivar species, Ulmus parvifolia 'Catlin,' is a dwarf variety specifically raised for bonsai by John Catlin, until I graduated from Fresno State College in 1966 with a of La Canada, California, circa 1950. It is valued for its degree in geology. small, shiny dark green, serrated leaves. Like Chinese elms, My first job as a geologist began in 1966 with the they are semi-deciduous in that they only change color and New Idria Quicksilver Mines, San Benito County, drop their leaves if the climate is cold enough. California. This mine closed in 1972 after operating 118 years. Economics and environmental issues were its Artist/ Maker: Kenneth Rank (See biography) demise. My geological career continued thereafter in minerals and petroleum exploration. I was employed as Donor: Kenneth Rank an environmental geologist the approximate last half of my 52-year geological career. Date Acquired by the CBCS: September, 2018 In 1991, a friend took me to Nee-Hai Nursery on Style: Shakan/Slanting The slant style trunk emerges from Ashland Avenue. I was intrigued, bought several plants, the soil at an angle, and the apex of the bonsai will be and began learning how to keep them alive. Amazingly, located to the left or right of the root base. Branches will growing these small plants helped me reconnect with my generally parallel the ground, rather than growing at right farming background. Also, I found that growing bonsai angles to the slanted trunk. Neagari/Exposed-root The trees satisfied a personal need to be creative. Slowly I roots of the tree are exposed as extensions of the trunk, free began buying higher quality plant material. I purchased from soil. Chinese Style: One of this Catlin elm’s Chinese instructional books and video tapes to help me grow in stylistic characteristics is the tight, sculptured foliage pads in knowledge. Also, I slowly began attending bonsai-related contrast to the more naturalistic Japanese style. events. A few years later I joined Hanford Bonsai Society. History: Though most people associate bonsai with Japan, When YouTube came on-stream in circa 2005, the the art found its origins in China nearly 3000 years ago world of bonsai opened-up for me. Instead of having to where it came to be called penjing, literally “tray landscape.” buy (expensive) books and instructional tapes, I could Of the three main types, only one, Shumu, was focussed on then view videos from novice hobbyists to world-renowned the tree only, the prevalent styles featuring rocks, water, professionals (at little or no direct cost). I watched every small plantings and structures or figures to create miniature YouTube video related to bonsai I could find. It did not landscapes, Buddhist monks brought the practice of what matter to me, hobbyist to professional, I watched them all. would be called bonsai to Japan in about the 12th century. In addition to YouTube videos, monthly demonstrations by They believed that cultivating these miniature trees and Bob Hilvers, guest speakers, and club workshops, I planting them in containers was an art form which was a became exposed to the vast and endless world of bonsai meditative, reflective and a harmonious way to be at one with knowledge. nature in keeping with the Buddhist philosophy of Zen. For me, to create a bonsai tree, or enjoy one created by someone else, is very rewarding.

3 Clark Bonsai Collection July, 2020 THE AGE OF TREES AND THE TREE OF THE AGES By Bob Hilvers

Among the visitors to the Clark Bonsai Collection, Creosote bushes the age of the bonsai is of universal interest. “How old is of the American that bonsai?” is the question most often fielded by our southwest form docents. It is a much more complex question than it “fairy rings” by might seem. At the risk of being accused of double-talk p u s h i n g n e w we often reply, “it’s not how old a bonsai is, it’s how old stems up from it looks.” The reference to how old a bonsai looks is apt. their roots as the Many bonsai are only a few years old but have been given older interior the appearance of stems die off, great age by the thus extending artist. On the other growth outward Great Basin bristlecone pines in the hand, some bonsai forming living White Mountains of Inyo are created using rings. There is plant material that is one such “ring” legitimately of in the Mojave extreme age. The Desert of southern California that is estimated to be Clark Bonsai 11,700 years old. A small colony of an extremely rare Collection contains type of Holly, a triploid—meaning that it can only specimens of native reproduce by cloning— growing in a single location in California Junipers Tasmania has been scientifically documented to be that are reliably 43,600 years old. A clonal colony of Quaking Aspens estimated to be over exists in 500 years old, southern Utah perhaps older. So, in occupying about these cases it is not 100 acres and how old the bonsai is 500+ years old CA Juniper Donor: consisting of but how old the plant Richard Ramirez/Restyled by over 47,000 is that the bonsai was Ryan Neil individual stems created from. Not united by a wishing to further common root complicate the issue, but the true age of the bonsai itself network. No is an additional consideration, meaning, how long a bonsai single tree in has been a bonsai. In this country it is exceedingly rare to this group has encounter a bonsai that was created more than 50 years King Clone in the Mohave Creosote been found to ago, but in Japan there are bonsai that are fully “fairy ring” 11,700 years old be over 100 documented to have been created as much as 700 years years old but ago. the root network Nevertheless, and despite the convoluted answer has been estimated by the University of Michigan to be to how old a bonsai is, people are fascinated by their perhaps as old as a million years. presumed “old” age. Our comparatively fleeting life The point can be made that clonal communities spans of less than a century naturally makes us curious to of plants are not single trees. Clones constantly replace know how old living things can get. Most of us are aware dead parts with new growth and therefore are not that when it comes to the oldest living thing, it is, in fact, really “old.” So, it is with ancient Bristlecones. Their a tree –- Bristlecone Pines to be exact…or are they? It has foliage is no more than 45 years old; the heartwood is been proven that there is a Bristlecone Pine in the White all dead and the living cells of the sapwood are less Mountains of California that is in excess of 4,800 years than 200 years old. These ancient trees are constantly old. Putting that into perspective a Bristlecone Pine, now replacing old tissue with young. They just do it living, was at least 200 years old before the first block of exceedingly slowly. Our discussion of the “oldest” can limestone was laid to construct the Great Pyramid of be resolved by accepting that Bristlecone Pines are the Egypt. oldest living trees and that some “clonal” plants are Say what?……and here is the kicker, Bristlecone the longest-lived…that we know of. Pines are the oldest trees, but they are not the oldest living thing. That distinction goes to any number of “clonal” plants that perpetuate themselves by sprouting new growth from old roots.

4 Clark Bonsai Collection July, 2020

HELP US FIND A TITLE FOR OUR COLORING BOOK We are hopeful that the day is near when Shinzen and the bonsai garden can be open for all to enjoy! In the meantime, we are still working to create a coloring book that captures some of the typical sights one can enjoy in the garden. We have found bonsai and garden scene coloring pages to be very popular with our visitors, for both kids and kids at heart. We also want to take the opportunity to share some information about bonsai and the garden, in keeping with our educational mission. We are trying to have the coloring book ready for pre-sale of the first edition soon, but we need some help coming up with an appealing title. “The Clark Bonsai Collection Coloring Book” seems a little too plain for such a very special place. Please help us by suggesting a more evocative title. We hope you will enjoy another sample page portraying one of our docents engaging with a visitor whose experience of the bonsai garden is enhanced by learning more about this fascinating art form and the stories of individual bonsai and their artists. Clearly this scene is from a simpler, pre-pandemic, maskless time. For the foreseeable future, visitors and docents will be wearing masks or face shields and maintaining a safe social distance.

An important part of any visit to the bonsai garden is being welcomed by our friendly, knowledgable docents who answer our visitors’ questions and tell the stories of the bonsai exhibited in quarterly rotations. Educating the public about the origins, science and art of bonsai is one of the Clark Bonsai Collection missions. Here Gold Star Docent Charlene Wylie is telling an interested visitor about Ray Thieme’s windswept style procumbens juniper. 5