Page 58 - BCI Bonsai & Stone Appreciation Q1 2025

Top: “Mihara,” featured
is a Kazari with scroll,
complementary element, and
the BCI awards.
Bottom: “Mihara” during its
Yoseki phase.
Mihara’s Journey: A Forgotten Stone’s
Transformation into Award-Winning Suiseki
Text and Photos by Nicola Sorressa, exhibitor and winner of the BCI Excellence Award, 27th
National Congress of the Associazione Italiana Amatori Suiseki (AIAS), Martina Franca, Italy.
In 2006, I found this stone while I was deeply engrossed
in bonsai cultivation and had never considered the
world of suiseki. That’s why, when I discovered this
stone in a garden in Calabria and brought it home, I
didn’t give it much thought. I only recall washing it
several times with a pressure washer, cleaning off the
soil, and, feeling no particular emotion, leaving it in a
corner of my terrace, unprotected. Unknowingly, I began
“cultivating” it through the natural process of Yoseki.
In 2022, however, during the Catanzaro exhibition, I
began to rethink my view of suiseki. My curiosity grew
steadily, and in 2023, during a cordial conversation
with Mimmo Abate at another Catanzaro exhibition,
I suddenly remembered the stone I had left forgotten
somewhere on my terrace.
Why not commission a daiza (custom stone base)
and keep it indoors? Mimmo, with his characteris-
tic kindness, offered to craft it as part of the Suiseki
56 | BCI | January/February/March 2025