When you think of bonsai, you think of an old Japanese artisan taking care of a hundred-year-old miniature tree. His weathered hand skillfully prunes, wires and waters. He works in silence, satisfied and at ease. Matt Puntigam and Paul Kierulf also share this satiation. They are nowhere near eighty and they’d tell you that anyone could fall in love with bonsai, an art form that originated in ancient China and later became popular with the Japanese.
In this month’s PEACE issue, HOKK fabrica caught up with these two modern bonsai masters from New York and talked about why bonsai matters to millennials who live in the city like you and me.
Hf: Hello! Please fill us in with your background.
Df: Hi this is Matt Puntigam and Paul Kierulf from Brooklyn and we are of Filipino descent. Matt has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Brown University and a Masters at Columbia University for Landscape Design while Paul has a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the Savannah College of Art & Design. We are designers, plant stylists, keen nature observers, and the co-founders of Dandy Farmer, a Brooklyn, NY based modern bonsai studio.
Hf: How did you meet and decide to start a bonsai studio together?
Df: We met through friends in NY and bonded over the natural world in upstate NY one light filled weekend. Matt grew up surrounded by fields and mountains and realized that being in touch with the outdoors is paramount to staying grounded and healthy.
This became a guiding principle, feeling connected to the land while still living in a big city. We had always wanted to find a way to change people’s lives by bringing nature closer and nurturing the best versions of ourselves.
That’s when Matt’s background in bonsai and garden design came in – from his years of experience living in Japan and apprenticing with plant artisans. Paul grew up in the city and was able to provide a lot of insight into how bonsai could co-exist with an urban lifestyle. As a designer, he recognized the value of plants in the city as a source of inspiration for his design work.
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Hf: How did you guys first fall in love with bonsai?
Df: Our love for bonsai is really just an extension of a love for nature, concentrated into a smaller space. Seeing the art and practice of bonsai in Japan was largely inspirational in helping us to believe in the potential of plants as an art and lifestyle to balance our lives.
Hf: What aesthetics or values are you looking for when you’re making a bonsai?
Df: Dandy Farmer taps into bonsai as a way to transport the imagination – to the woods or open fields it represents, and scaling it to the palm of your hands. We should be able to look at a bonsai and imagine ourselves on a hill sitting underneath its canopy. A well composed bonsai recreates nature in an idealized miniature landscape, achieved by shaping and training the structure of the tree and relating it to the container. This overall balance should display the life force of the tree.
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People often think age and shape alone make bonsai valuable, but we don’t want this approach to cloud the importance of simpler, non-tree arrangements. Ferns and moss can also be effective in transporting and connecting you to the forest floor, while grasses and flowers can represent the open fields of a meadow. Neither arrangement has trees, but they can still represent the land or mountainside. This is why we take a modern approach to bonsai. We want to make it accessible to everyone.
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Hf: You mentioned that ’the roles of nurturer and nurtured seem to change’ on your website, tell us one important lesson you learnt from bonsai.
Df: Caring for trees and plants is not a one way relationship.They often teach us a lot of important lessons in their own way, too. We have learned to slow down from the hustle and bustle of our everyday lives and be more patient. A small bonsai arrangement also represents the frustration of trying to control nature, and there is much to learn from accepting the natural cycles of life and death.
Hf: Can you give us some tips for bonsai starters? What should they take note of before they engage in bonsai-making?
Df:
#1 Don’t be afraid.
#2 You can bonsai anything from herbs to trees, just use your imagination and experiment.
#3 Don’t steal older trees from nature, it is disrespectful to the animals and insects that are supported by them.
#4 Think about the native habitat of your plants and try to mimic that environment as much as possible.
#5 All plants enjoy being outdoors when the temperatures aren’t too extreme. Give them some natural light and wind, just like we would want.
#6 It is fine to test limits but pay attention to your plants after each time you make any big changes, like repotting or pruning.
All Photos courtesy of Dandy Farmer
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DESIGN: LAWRA/HOKK FABRICA
17 September 2017, 12:00 AM
HOKK fabrica
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