President’s Message
Looks like our scheduled beginner’s class on our third Thursday meeting has taken off like gangbusters. Juan Cruz, has taken on a large number of interested members that see the need to firm up their basic bonsai skills for their future trees development.
His program will continue over the next few months during our third Thursday workshops, all other members will stay with the usual program of bringing in their tree for further senior assistance Thanks Juan for stepping up to the plate and offering your personal bonsai help for this needed program!
Suiseki Recap
I would like to take this time to thank Jack Callon for his creative presentation enlightening us all regarding the art of Suiseki. Jack brought in many fine examples of his work, showing us how a grouping of trees and rock in a shallow container can work so beautifully together reminiscing the the real environment we see in nature.
So much history evolves around this bonsai artform, and hopefully Jack was able to move us personally to maybe try our own skills out with this environmental artform. Jack, thanks for sharing your skillful hand with this potted natural environment.
Creating Bonsai Deadwood Features
For the month of April, our club will be entertained by our own Mehrdad Chavosh, a skilled artist, who utilizes motor tools to create realistic carvings on our bonsai trees. Mehrdad has traveled to many clubs in the Bay Area over the years, demonstrating his undue motor skills in how to create realistic deadwood cravings on trees that show natural features on trunks and branches. He carves out trunks, kills off branches, making them look like they where aged by mother natures forces of wind, snow and pelting sand.
He will discuss with us the motor tools necessary to perform this operation, along with the type of bits he uses to peel away the wood necessary to effectively perform natural deadwood features. Mehrdad will bring in his own trees that he has worked on over many years so you can see the results that you can bring to your own trees. A meeting you will not want to miss!
A Festival You Will Not Want To Miss!
Spring has sprung, and with that, the annual Cherry Blossom Festival in Cupertino will be taking place this April 30th and May 1st. This is a special time for our Midori club where we will once again have a chance to display a fine groupings of our bonsai trees to the South Bay Area public.
This is a two day event from 10:00am to 5:00pm. We start in the morning of Saturday at 8:00am bringing in the necessary display backdrops for our trees that will need assembly. We will need club member help to transport and assemble that morning along with the setting up of our trees and needed supplies for the whole operation. A sign-up sheet has been passed around to club members that would like to support this venue with a tree or two over the two days of this festival.
In addition, club members staying for the day will have a chance to bring in trees to work on throughout the day. This means that you will need to bring in your tools along with a tree or two to work on, so the public can be given a hands on demonstration to see how we work on our trees and answer any questions they may have.
This is truly a fun event for all participating. Sharing our bonsai knowledge and trees is a great opportunity with the hundreds of guests that file through our display area. Food and snacks are available throughout the day for us all—outside by food venders and inside by community volunteers. Keep in mind that we will need everyone’s trees for display by 9:00am both Saturday and Sunday. On Sunday the event is over and we will once again need all trees and materials picked up along the display needing disassembly and returned to Gerry Field’s home.
For those of you in the club that don’t have a tree to display, but would like to stop by and see the festival and our displays please do so, we would like to see everyone and see you be given a chance to see what it's all about for future opportunities. Here’s the information to the event.
Quinlan Community Center
10185 N. Stelling Rd
Cupertino, CA
We'll need your help starting at 8:00am Saturday morning for rees and display assembly.
5:00pm Sunday, we will need all trees and materials picked up and our display returned for storage.
Midori Club Nursery Tour
Unfortunately, one of the nursery locations that we planned to visit May 7th has let us know that he doesn't want a large group visiting his nursery that day. He has his good reasons, so we will be postponing that event for another month down the road, maybe visiting the North Bay Area for a better selection of nurseries. Sorry everyone!
Have a great month doing bonsai everyone!