February 2021 Bonsai Newsletter
The 2021 Bonsai-A-Thon is fast approaching. In normal times, this Golden State Bonsai Federation (GSBF) event is held over a late February weekend at the Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. This year, due to Covid-19 restrictions, rather than the traditional two-day in-person event, it will be a one-day virtual program on Zoom.
The Bonsai-A-Thon will be held on Saturday February 27. It is open to all, but you must pre-register to get the Zoom link.
It is easy to register. Go to: www.huntington.org/events/virtual-bonsai-thon and fill out the form. An email confirmation with a virtual ticket will be sent to you.
The program will be in two segments. In the first, which will be from 10:00 – 11:30 AM, the curator of the bonsai collections, Ted Matson, will host a virtual tour of the bonsai courts at the Huntington, the Ben Oki Bonsai Nursery, and the Lifelines/Timelines bonsai exhibition.
The Lifelines/Timelines exhibition asks the question: “How do five venerable bonsai trees relate in age and historical significance to important works in The Hunting-ton’s library and art collections?” Lifelines/Timelines compares the age of selected California juniper bonsai with significant pieces in the art collections.
In the second segment, which will be from 1:30 – 3:00 PM, Phillip E. Bloom, the June and Simon K.C. Li Curator of the Chinese Garden at the Huntington, will present the new penjing court and discuss the history of this art form. He is also the Director of the Center of East Asian Garden Studies.
Both sessions will include time for questions from audience members.
This will be a great opportunity to see the bonsai and penjing collections in both the Japanese and Chinese gardens! Note that some of the bonsai belong to the Huntington’s own collection, others are in the GSBF collection.
