Page 25 - BSAM 2015 Q1

form even though at the age of seven I had no idea that people so far away had been collecting and admiring stones for centuries.
Growing older, I have come to appreciate many small things—from the beauty of a single piece of su- shi so carefully and creatively constructed—to the love of Japanese Haiku poetry and those writers who have excelled in expressing in a short 17-syllable poem such grand ideals. For example, short Haiku poem by Yosa Buson (1716 - 1783), a Haiku poet and painter of the middle Edo period who was born in Settsu (Osaka):
In the night of the winter moon Small stones
Touch the bottom of my shoes
For those of you who personally collect stones, whether directly by roaming through river beds and streams or by purchasing them, you have experienced how difficult it is to find a great stone of any size. This is exacerbated even more so when attempting to find a suiseki or high-quality viewing stone of so small a stature. The majority of our small stones in our collec- tion are under 20 cm, or approximately 8 inches, and they bring to mind many things we experience and treasure in nature and life: from far-away mountain ranges or peaks, to thundering waterfalls, to heavily
worn wooden and stone bridges, to dilapidated old huts, and even representations of human figures. Each stone in our collection can easily be held in our hands, we can feel and inspect its surface and its shape. But it only starts there. The true beauty is when the stone captures our imagination and takes us on a mind’s journey to those once visited faraway places. It is at that moment we experience a profound sense of inti- macy, solitude, and serenity.
For a few moments, KJ, my wife, and I would like to share a few stones from our personal collection. We will associate the suiseki classification for each of our stones as many of the stones are from Japan; however, in our collection we have stones from Italy, China, and throughout the Western United States. Let’s start with mountain stones prevalent in so many collections in- cluding ours.
Mountain ranges are present in almost every country. We see in our small stones mountain ranges reminiscent of those we have visited in the United States, Japan, and China.
Figure 1 is a distant mountain stone with at least
seven peaks of varying heights. It is well balanced and
visually very appealing. One can imagine seeing this
type of mountain range in numerous countries. 13 x 5 x 9 cm
Bottom; Figure 1 – Distant Mountain Stone; Japan;
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