A few weeks ago i was incredibly lucky to be the Artist in Residence at the NBPCA.

The NBPCA is part of the larger National Arboretum (https://www.nationalarboretum.act.gov.au/) located in the heart of Canberra. The larger Arboretum is a great day out for any tree lover with 100 forests planted across the site amongst a scattering of lookouts, walks, a killer playground and a restaurant / cafe with view that’s hard to beat!

Terrible photography on my behalf: Part of the view the collection looks out across with a constant stream of people enjoying the collection and larger Arboretum site. The view is much more panoramic but the above gives you a taste. Get up there and experience it for yourself!

Within the Arboretum, the Bonsai and Penjing collection itself commands impressive views over the city, with the views of the bonsai inside it’s walls also pretty impressive.

With a mix of permanent collection bonsai and loan trees there is always something interesting on display to see with the trees changing with the swap over of loan trees on a regular enough basis to make re-visiting the facility each time fresh and enjoyable. In fact, at the moment I have 3 trees on loan and on display adding some fresh faces (fresh trunks perhaps) to the smaller trees in the collection. If you haven’t been, and you’re into bonsai or trees more broadly, i would thoroughly recommend a visit!

It had been a number of years since i had been to the collection proper, and it was great that i got to catch up and Spend time with both curator Leigh Taafe and assistant curator Sam Thompson. Leigh i have know for many years but it was really good to get an opportunity to hang out together, reacquaint ourselves and talk all things bonsai. It had been a long time between chats!

Sam on the other hand, i had met on some previous occasions but it had only been in very small, passing hello’s at conventions and the like, so it was really nice to spend some time together and get to know him better.

Sam and I spent the first day of my stay working together and discussing a whole range of things from pottery obsessions to the day to day challenges and methods of running a collection such as the NBPCA.

As for what my role there was, the Artist in Residence program is predominantly a knowledge sharing exercise with a range of different bonsai practitioners from around the country being given the opportunity to share ideas, techniques and skills with the collection and it’s volunteers. On the flip side it provides a great experience for those outside of Canberra to have some involvement in what is a the jewel in the crown of the Australian bonsai community and be exposed to trees from around the country and the inner workings of a high end public collection.

Another part of my time at the collection was working on some trees. The trees were provided with the aim that they will likely be used as part of the annual fundraising for the collection, with raised monies going back into the collection, it’s trees and it’s ongoing operations. A nice thing to be able to contribute back to.

The first tree I worked was a large Trident Maple that I was able to slowly style over the course of the first day, all while chatting to a few of the Volunteers and Sam.

As a bit of a side note, I didn’t take many pics but luckily Sam and Mike (from the Friends of the Arboretum group) took and kindly sent me a few which are below.

Above: Before

Above: After, (with me for scale.)

I was pretty happy with how this one turned out. Being a trident, there is only so much bending you can get out of thick branches, so the existing structure dictated many of the styling decisions. Via slowly editing the branching and wiring what was left I think you will agree that we were left with what looks like wild and mature deciduous tree. I think this one will have a bright future as further ramification is built upon the branches we set.

As part of the knowledge sharing side of things i also prepared a presentation on refining, or more so maintaining refined trees. The Arboretum is a little unusual in that all the trees it has or likely will receive for their display are already in a refined state and so maintaining that refinement is an important skill-set over those skills used to take a tree from say a developed structure into that state of refinement. I think it was well received.

I also conducted a demonstration on styling and how i go about taking stock through its first styling into a bonsai.

I was really happy with the material i was presented with as i have been playing with a lot of similar trees in my own collection lately.

The tree itself was a procumbens Juniper and had some wild and unusual movement, including a loop the loop feature. I began by removing unnecessary branching and making shari that highlighted the movement of the trunk-line.

The aim was to compact the foliage around the movement in the trunk to really play this up as the hero of the composition.

With the completion of the demonstration the structure or the future bonsai was set. I was really happy with how the tree turned out and think that it has a bright future ahead of it once the foliage fills out a little (which will happen quickly on a procumbens) and it gets a suitable pot.

And with that my time was done and i was back on my way home.

All in all i really enjoyed my time as Artist in residence. It was really nice to have some involvement in a collection that is essentially owned by the wider Australian bonsai community.

I cannot recommend enough getting up there for a visit and if you would like to be involved in some way I am sure Leigh would be more than happy to talk about Volunteering, Donating, Loaning trees or being otherwise involved.

As a final though, I’d like to extend a thank you to Leigh and Sam for so graciously hosting me and to all the Volunteers i met who were also very welcoming and accommodating. I hope i can get back up there at some stage soon for another visit.