Last weekend wrapped up the first Bay Area Suiseki and Shohin Show. Held at the Lake Merritt Garden Center in Oakland, California, the event was sponsored by the San Francisco Suiseki Kai, California Suiseki Society, Bay Area Shohin Society, California Shohin Society and members of other Bay Area bonsai clubs.

Today we’ll look at a selection of the suiseki on display, beginning with a special exhibit of viewing stones by Mas Nakajima. Mas was a suiseki artist practicing in the Bay Area. For those unfamiliar with his work, his artist statement provides a good introduction.

My sculpture combines natural stone and wood to create harmony by integrating the life of wood with the simplicity and purity of natural stone. I begin by finding stones in riverbeds and mountains in California and keep the stones until I am ready to integrate them with the chosen wood. The process of unifying these two materials, by specific selection and by accidental match, results in unexpected and endless possibilities.

Working with wood and stone is very familiar to me, having been born and raised in a traditional Japanese-style wooden house, in a small town near the Japan Alps, surrounded by mountains, rivers, and forests. Twenty-five years of building and designing houses in the Bay Area has developed my aesthetic sensibility and my understanding of the relationship between an object and the surrounding space.
–Mas Nakajima, March 2006