Bay Island Bonsai was fortunate this year to have Daisaku Nomoto around to help with its 13th annual exhibit.
Daisaku Nomoto
Nomoto, Boon’s senpai at Kihachi-en, wired trees, prepared moss top-dressings, and carried many trees before, during, and after the exhibit. Somewhere along the way, he took a liking to a Western juniper. So much so, it became the recipient of the first Daisaku Nomoto Bonsai Award.
The winning tree – Western Juniper
Nomoto is a fan of trees styled in this fashion. The tree has a somewhat bunjin-gi feeling, but has a more substantial trunk and silhouette than typical bunjin bonsai. The tree is full, healthy, and well balanced. I’ll add that it points to the right.
Having seen the tree develop since it was collected, I can say that it’s come a long way in a very short time. It is a deserving recipient of the first Daisaku Nomoto Bonsai Award.
The award
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Michael Pollock says
I love this tree. In addition to being quite refined, it is also prepared for display at the highest level. So darn rare in the US.
As far as the directionality of the tree (is that a real word?), I begrudgingly accept it. For me, my eye starts going up and to the right, then bends left with the apex and enjoys all of this branches dipping down on the left. The apex does point right, but I feel a counter-clockwise movement of my gaze that forms my feel for the direction. My inclination would be to place this on the right of a display with complementary objects on the left. But my teachers usually tell me I’m wrong in this regard. 😉
Michael Pollock says
I guess if there were less foliage on the right and a bit more on the left, all would agree on right to left movement in the tree. The combination of the initial trunk direction AND the foliage mass placement makes this a left to right tree.
Steve Moore says
I agree with Mike about the refinement of this tree, and the great job of preparation. To me, it also is a fine representation of a *mature* tree.
I differ with Mike about the directionality (I think it’s becoming a word, since we use it so much lately.) But that’s a matter of personal judgment, how one’s eye was trained early on. My early years were in the equatorial rainforest, and that’s where my basic idea of “tree” was defined.