“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson
There are more than seven billion people alive on our planet right now. That means that even if you are a one-in-a-million guy, there are more than 7,000 other guys just like you. So it's really interesting to have a chance to learn from someone who really is different from all the rest. This fall, I had a chance to sit in, as a silent observer, on a Dan Robinson workshop at the Golden State Bonsai Federation Convention. It was a great workshop, even though it was held outside (due to all the flying sawdust and wood chips) and it was a day for Santa Ana winds in Riverside.
The one disappointment is that I was not a participant, but I had three very good reasons not to sign up for this workshop. First and foremost, the GSBF Convention runs Thursday to Sunday, and this workshop was on Friday. I signed up for the whole convention, but I didn't really block it out at work like I would for a vacation, so I knew that any workshop I bought for Thursday or Friday might go to waste. In hindsight, Thursday workshops would have gone to waste, but I totally could have done this Friday workshop with Dan. Second, still being a dilettante, I wanted to be able to spend some time popping in and out of the other demos and workshops running concurrently. And third, I didn't know exactly what to expect, and I wasn't at all confident that any tree I chose for my BYOT would have been suitable.
Carving is a skill I'm still working on. I say this with no false modesty. My carving still sucks. I recently tried carving an ugly stump on a collected bougainvillea and ended up with what can best be described as looking like the tortured fingers of a man currently being tasered by the police. So this workshop offered me two very good opportunities - the chance to learn more about carving, and the chance to listen to a bonsai artist who was not like all the other triangle-upon-triangle instructors.
Like Walter Pall, Dan Robinson doesn't really set out to make trees look like outstanding bonsai. He looks at trees in nature and tries to make his bonsai look like something you would find in the wild. Or, as John Naka would say "don't make your tree look like a bonsai; make your bonsai look like a tree."
This was a tree that Dan brought as an exemplar. Look at the carving on this. There are no smooth lines, obvious patterns or indications of design. It is meant to look wicked and gnarled as only a tree in the harshness of open nature can ever be. It has, at fairly random intervals, hollows, holes and broken tips of jin. Aside from the pot and the wire, it shows no sign of human interference whatsoever. That's the good stuff, isn't it?
So what did I learn?
In addition to getting to watch, up close, exactly how Dan uses a dremel or die grinder (he didn't bring his famous chainsaw to this one) to accomplish his goals, we got to hear Dan offer what he called his four "principles of bonsai":
1. All bonsai trees deserve to have some deadwood, which should be sculpted and refined to add value and not simply fill space.
2. Signs of human intervention should be avoided at all costs. Lost branches should have hollows or broken jagged tips. Flat stubs and concave-cutter "bulls-eyes" should be eschewed. Whatever changes you make, let them appear to be from the forces of nature, whether that be winds, animals, lightning or some other force other than a person and his tools.
3. All trees deserve wicked gnarly crooked twisted or undulating branches. Only the young ones have straight branches.
4. Finally, train with wires, but don't just wire your branches and twist them into long bows. Make sure the branches move like and look like old trees in nature. And use guy wires for your heavy bending. Not too far from the trunk, because that will make a bow. Not too close to the trunk, because that won't give you movement unless you apply so much force that your branch could be broken off.
Apply these principles, and your trees can have dramatic transformations not only from unrefined to refined, but from common to uncommon.
Here's the bougainvillea as Dan started exposing live veins and deadwood, poking holes all the way through the trunk, and leaving hollows and busted branches.
For a lot more on Dan Robinson, his experiences, techniques and best of all, his trees, I recommend getting a copy of Gnarly Branches, Ancient Trees by Will Hiltz. You can find it on Amazon or purchase it directly from Dan's business, Elendan Gardens. I got mine for $50, including an inscription and signature from Dan.