December 8th Winter Holiday Potluck
Good news! Once again, Club Treasurer, Tina Hammond, has offered to host our holiday party and raffle at her Mesa home. Apparently, you were all well-behaved last summer and no one stole the patio furniture. Well done! Please bring a potluck dish to share, a spouse or significant other and an item or two for the fun and exciting raffle. (Note: spouses cannot be considered as raffle prizes.) Easiest way to get to Tina’s house is to take Los Positas past Elings Park toward the ocean. At the end, turn right onto Cliff Drive. Go up the hill toward Hope Ranch. At the gate, turn right onto Marina Drive, left onto Sea Ranch Drive, then right onto Campanil. You can email her at bhammond23@cox.net. All proceeds from the raffle go into our coffers to help pay for presentations and workshop in 2018.
President’s Message: Happy Holidays!
As you remember, last winter’s potluck scheduled to be at Tina Hammond’s house was canceled because of the Thomas fire that was then raging and the resulting poor air quality, so I’m really looking forward to a happy event this year, our last event of the year, at Tina’s house. I hope to see you there.
I’m also looking forward to 2019. Steve Gibson is promising a good lineup of Tuesday evening programs and Saturday workshops, our show is scheduled for May 18-19 again at the Lutheran Church where we had this year’s show, and Wally Kunimoto has arranged for a special Saturday presentation by Frank Goya in June. And by all means, please sign up for the Saturday workshops, regardless of your bonsai experience or skill level! You’ll lean a lot and we need good participation to keep the workshops fiscally viable. I can’t say I’m terribly sad to say goodbye to 2018. Our loss of Tom Post and Giorgio Perissinotto within days of each other was an unexpected blow personally and to the club. To date, $900 has been donated to the club in Tom’s memory. A couple of possible uses for some of the money could be to pay for the Frank Goya presentation or for the long-postponed re-doing of our tokonoma. Other suggestions are welcome.
~ Joe
Last Month: The Good, The Bad & The… Unusual
The call went out to bring in bonsai material that was somewhat different than the skinny juniper with the glued-on rocks in the blue glazed pot at Home Depot. And Club members came through with a potpourri of “back-of-the-bench” stuff. Wally brought in two in-arch-grafted pines. One originally had long leggy branches that are now walking elsewhere. The other was white pine foliage in-arch grafted onto black pine stock making kind of a “zebra” pine. Allan brought in a “zelcova” he bought that wasn’t a zelcova after all. No one was quite sure what it was. Steve brought in a tomatillo tomato tree, a mulberry and a white oleander. Joe brought in a pine with a sacrifice branch that would soon be tall enough for the giant to climb down. John brought in a nice portulacaria that had an unusual red trunk. And I brought in a California sage, a mestoklema and a pitasporum that I won at the very end of a long raffle after all the good stuff had gone.
~ Ernie
New Year’s Resolution Number 3
After pledging to eat more and exercise less (wait… did I get that right?), New Year’s Resolution Number 3 should be to devote more time and effort to the Art of Bonsai. One way to do that is to send in your check for $120 for the FOUR SPRING WORKSHOPS (January, February, March and April). Bonsai experts Roy Nagatoshi, Carol Manning, Mel Ikeda and Kathy Benson will help you design, prune and wire your trees. They can even help you find the front of your tree and the best angle to repot it for displaying at our May show. Plus, they always make learning a fun experience. We have space for 8 participants in the Morning session (9 am – noon) and 8 in the Afternoon session (1 pm to 4 pm,) so please sign up early using the form accompanying this newsletter. Individual workshops, if space is available, are $40 per workshop, so you save $10 per workshop by signing up for all four now.
Also, seeing as you have your checkbook out, annual CLUB MEMBERSHIP dues are also due in January. For just $35.00 per year (used specifically to meet expenses for the GVCC meeting room and two or three outside Tuesday evening presenters) you get to support the #1 bonsai club in all of Santa Barbara and Goleta! Your trees will thank you.
Upcoming
January 19 – 20, 2019 Arcadia, California
Baikoen Bonsai Kenkyukai: “Winter Silhouette” the 55th Annual Exhibition, founded by Frank Fusaji Nagata, at Ayres Hall of Environmental Education, Arboretum of Los Angeles County. 301 North Baldwin Avenue. Show hours are from 10 AM to 4:30 PM with a demonstration at 1 PM, both days. The reception is open to friends of Baikoen Bonsai Kenkyukai, Saturday night (6:30-9pm), when the Nagata-Komai Award will be presented to Ted Matson, followed by a giant raffle/auction. Sales area: club and vendor plants, pots, tools and more. For more information contact Lindsay Shiba: shibalindsay@gmail.com or Ken Teh: kenwteh6@gmail.com or visit our website: www.baikoenbonsai.com
February 2 – 3 2019 Corona Del Mar, California
Orange Empire Bonsai Society (OESB): First Annual Bonsai Exhibition at the Sherman Library & Gardens (www.slgardens.org), 2647 Pacific Coast Highway. Show hours are 10:30 AM – 4 PM both days. Trees on display, bonsai trees and items for sale. Bonsai Master Jason Chan workshop on Saturday at 11 AM with Prostrata Junipers. Workshop participants will be able to take home a styled and potted tree. OEBS member Debra Mauzy- Melitz will conduct a Saikei demonstration Sunday at 1 PM. Jason Chan will also be representing Eastern Leaf Bonsai at the exhibition. The workshop is limited to (10) people, no bonsai experience required. Tickets for workshop and fee paid to The Sherman Library & Gardens. Check their website for workshop availability, if interested. For more information visit www.slgardens.org or contact David Nadzam at also, (714) 474-5712 or tetsujinbb62@gmail.com
Librarian’s Corner: I Am An American
This is not a regular book report, but is prompted by an article in the October 2018 National Geographic magazine. I’ll be donating our issue to the library.
In the October issue of National Geographic magazine there is an article entitled “I am an American” which reminded me of when I was about 10, growing up in the country near Kingston, NY. My sister, 7 years older than I, was going to Eastman School of music, as a viola student. I remember very vividly her coming home one time, having met two violin students at Eastman, by the names of Masa Kitagawa and Eiko Yosishato, which I remember just phonetically, not knowing just how they were spelled. My sister Eva was just irate, because she learned from them that the people of Japanese descent had been sent to relocation centers at the time of WW 2, many of them US citizens. On the east coast this was not a major issue, there was more concern about people of recent German origin, and my mother of German descent, was worried about a good friend, Anton Otto Fischer, from Germany, known for his landscapes and especially, his paintings of sailing ships, on which he had sailed for years. My sister Eva stormed about how these two Japanese girls accepted this treatment, and, just turned the other cheek, as the expression goes. Both Masa and Eiko came up to our place to visit with Eva, and felt welcomed, I hope. Since so many of us in Bonsai have Japanese-American friends, this article covers much that many of us may not know what happened. Joe Olson is currently taking care of an olive bonsai which belonged to Ikey and Amy Kakimoto, who was in our club. I understand when they had to go, they had Quaker friends who offered to take care of their olive, and Amy and Ikey got it back when they returned. Some of you may remember an article in the July 13, 2000 issue of the Independent about Clarence Ward, who as a senator attempted to prohibit the people of Japanese descent from returning to their property in California. Susanne
