Colorado fine artists who shape small trees with subtle meditative movements are going big, bringing the ancient art of bonsai — once practiced only by monks and samurai — to the mainstream with two major events.
“Visions of the American West: Rocky Mountain Bonsai and Suiseki,” an international convention of bonsai artists, opens Thursday in Denver, featuring top talent from countries such as Belgium and Australia.
On Wednesday, Denver Botanic Gardens officially opens the , featuring miniature trees in ceramic pots that look like trees in a forest, with gnarled trunks, windswept shapes and gently cascading branches.
“I envision it very much like a fine-art gallery, and the tree is a fine art,” said Larry Jackel, a past president of the Rocky Mountain Bonsai Society who was hired in April to be the bonsai specialist for the pavilion.
Although many people think of bonsai as small trees bought at big-box stores, enthusiasts are after something else.
“We are into a much bigger impact tree,” Jackel said. “The impression we’re trying to give is much more profound than a tiny little tree in a pot.”
This demanding ancient art form was originally practiced in China by Buddhist monks and then went to Japan, where it was an art of the samurai.
Deeply philosophical, it required treks into mountains and forests in search of the perfect specimen — a quest symbolizing the search for the inner self. Most prized were trees that evoked the universal ideal, harmony between nature and man.
Vestiges of this same vision linger in Jackel’s description of the collection of trees at the bonsai pavilion.
“They’re great national caliber — what my friends and I that collect trees call ‘all universe’ trees,” he said.
Those who gather monthly for meetings of the Rocky Mountain Bonsai Society are mostly men from a variety of backgrounds.
Jackel taught science at Smoky Hill High School. The society’s current president, Patrick Allen, recently retired from the Army Reserve as a colonel and served a one-year tour of duty in Afghanistan. There’s a pastor, many physicians and the chair of the computer science department at Colorado State University. There’s even a former musician from one of Denver’s hottest hard-rock bands.
“I went from the completely chaotic party scene to now spending weekends in the mountains, where it is completely quiet,” said Todd Schlafer, program chair of the Rocky Mountain Bonsai Society and ex-guitarist for Rocket Ajax. “Almost every night I’d lay in bed, planning hikes in my head, thinking how to get out trees from the rocks. I was completely obsessed at times.”
The Rocky Mountain Bonsai Society, which grew out of two Denver clubs — one Japanese-speaking, the other English-speaking — dates to 1945, long before most Americans knew about bonsai.
It didn’t gain much attention in popular culture until the 1970s, when to commemorate the American bicentennial, which kicked off .
Denver was decades ahead of the trend, thanks to eight Japanese men who started a bonsai club after being released from internment camps in Wyoming and Colorado after World War II.
The and included men such as George Fukuma, a downtown Denver grocer who expanded his business to include bonsai.
“He had collected Rocky Mountain junipers and ponderosa pine in big pots,” recalls Harold Sasaki, a stockbroker who often visited the shop in the early ’60s. “I was fascinated by the size and character of the trees and thought, ‘I’d sure like to have a business like this one day.’ “
Sasaki joined the Denver Bonsai Club and learned from the masters.
By the mid-’80s, he and his wife, Marcia, a granddaughter of one of Denver’s eight bonsai pioneers, had started . in Wheat Ridge, a nursery with more than a thousand plants.
Sasaki, who has taught bonsai classes at Denver Botanic Gardens since 1977, was an early mentor to , and later spent six years in Japan studying with bonsai master Masahiko Kimura, before opening .
“He’d come over and pump me for all kinds of information,” said Sasaki. “He’s now well-respected, and I’d put him up against anyone in the world.”
Neil, who will teach at the upcoming international convention, aspires to take the United States to a new level of bonsai artistry.
For people such as Paul Gilbert of Greeley, things are already heading in that direction.
“We’ve had the American exhibition here before, but never the international,” said Gilbert, who flew to China three years ago with the winning bid that landed the international convention. “It’s really awesome.”
Colleen O’Connor: 303-954-1083 or coconnor@denverpost.com
Branching out
The , located at Denver Botanic Gardens, 1007 York St., will open at 12:30 p.m. Wednesday.
“Visions of the American West: Rocky Mountain Bonsai and Suiseki,” an exhibition of North American bonsai, will be on display at the Denver Marriott Tech Center, 4900 S. Syracuse St., Thursday through Sunday. Tickets are $10. For more details, go to .
To learn more about growing bonsai in Colorado’s challenging climate, go to the Rocky Mountain Bonsai Society website, rockymtnbonsai.org.
