Page 51 - BSAM 2016 Q4

A Premonition of Bonsai
ADreamSetinMotion
By Alessandro Bonardo, Italy
Photos by Marco Bonardo and Massimo Bandera, Italy
“When a resolute young fellow steps up to the great bully, the world, and takes him boldly by the beard, he is often surprised to nd it comes o in his hand, and that it was only tied on to scare away the timid adventurers.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
It was on April 11, 2010, the day when for the rst time, I put my hands on a bonsai.
e interest for this art began when I could still count my age on my ngers; while hiking near Vinadio, in Colle della Lombarda and Colle Maladecia in particular,
I was fascinated by the very old forms of larch and stone pine.
In bonsai, I rst glimpsed the possibility of transferring the emotion of those places to a balcony in my house.
I was eight or nine years old when I applied for registration to the Scuola d’Arte Bonsai, but the response was anything but pleasant, "bonsai is not for children, wait until you are at least twelve years old."
So I did, but did I not take it well.
While waiting I began to acquire a taste for miniature trees from various catalogs, the most signi cant of which, was "Bonsai Masterpieces" a publication of the Nippon Bonsai Association.
It was a very ordinary basic course in which they taught how to care for the small plants from the market, which other than the label, had nothing
to do with bonsai or Japan.
Sure it may sound strange, but even then I realized that the bonsai was much more than just a hobby.
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