So I’m getting ready for the 2017 bonsai growing season, and that means stocking in my first round of bonsai pots. Now, the world of handmade bonsai pots is an art all to itself. This is not to suggest that there’s anything wrong with inexpensive training pots, of course – I use them myself from time to time. But my preference is to use nice handmade pieces of art to create my bonsai compositions. Art in art, right?
Yesterday I visited Byron Myrick’s studio and came away with 14 pieces. These coupled with the five I had had shipped in by Chuck Iker last week (the first five shown below) gives me a great head-start on my 2017 work. Don’t these two guys create awesome pots? If you prefer potting your own trees and really want to show them to best advantage, you can’t go wrong with either of these top-flight artists.
I have a personal preference for glazed pots, as you can probably tell. Since I grow mostly deciduous trees, the glazed pot is a natural complement – though frankly I’ll use a glazed pot on any species as long as the color works.
Tune in tomorrow to find out what happened with one of these pots and this Hackberry (Celtis laevigata):
And I add that it will take the potter making molds to form the square corner pots around and the added labor to make slabs of clay, cutting and fitting the slabs around an inside mold or shape. Followed by the work to blend the corners and shape the outside in some pleasing design. The potter that commits to producing a wide choice of dimensions, glaze or unglazed will have more business than he or she can deal with. Look at any bonsai exhibition and see how many rectangles are used as opposed to rounded shapes. I’d say 3 to 1. The volume is in the rectangles and the American market is sitting out there waiting for them.
Ditto.
Zach, Happy New Year.
The pots posted above are beautiful work and American bonsai pottery seems to be coming along quite nicely.
I am to the point where I don’t need another round or oval pot. There in lays the hitch in my giddy up. Most all American pots are turned on a wheel and some manipulated to be oval or even slightly rectangular with the corners rounded.
I know there are a couple of American potters that will make a true rectangle or square. But when you run across them it is mentioned on their web site with the feeling that comes across as, “don’t bother me”. Until someone with potting skills and a kiln commits to making real rectangles, in many sizes and shapes there is going to be a saturation point of round and oval works. My opinion mind you.
I hear you, Mac. I try to buy rectangles when I can, but they aren’t plentiful as “stock” pieces by most potters. I often commission my rectangles – some trees just don’t do well in a round or oval.