#24 Nao Tokutake of Tokutake Bonsai

[00:00:00] Speaker A: To baby trees. The Black Pondo podcast. The Black Pondo podcast. [00:00:20] Speaker B: I'm firing the kiln right now, so I'm gonna run around while we're talking. [00:00:25] Speaker C: Awesome. I love it. Multitasking. Take your time. Those are more important than this. [00:00:34] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:00:34] Speaker B: Once I check it, we were good for 30 minutes and then I have to check it again. [00:00:39] Speaker C: Okay. Awesome. Awesome. [00:00:40] Speaker B: Okay, we're good. Let's do this. How are you? [00:00:44] Speaker C: Awesome. I'm doing great. Yeah. How are you doing, man? [00:00:48] Speaker B: Good. I. Let's see here. Yeah, it's always pretty hectic. I'm always working on lots of things and. Yeah, what can I say? [00:01:00] Speaker C: Yes. Life with. With little ones and then a full time job and then you have your bonsai pottery business. That is a lot, lot going on. For sure. [00:01:12] Speaker B: Yeah. Mary does a lot of the heavy lifting, I have to say. And we have like nannies now that come in and help with the childcare aspect. That helps a lot. [00:01:22] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:01:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:01:24] Speaker C: Well, that's really good. Awesome. This is better than I expected because I'm getting a little bit of a tour of like, what your workshop and bonsai and the kiln looks like. [00:01:36] Speaker B: Yeah. This is my backyard. I have way too many trees. I have. [00:01:42] Speaker A: Let's see. Wow. [00:01:45] Speaker B: Ilex is looking pretty good. And Princess Persimmon is in the tokonoma. [00:01:55] Speaker C: Wow, you have a little. Did you build that display yourself? [00:01:58] Speaker B: Yeah, it's not. It's an outdoor, so it's meant to get rained on. So you can see. It's. [00:02:05] Speaker C: It's. [00:02:05] Speaker B: It's not like really formal and it's. It's just fine to put up a seasonal display, you know? So the. This guy. [00:02:13] Speaker C: I love it. [00:02:13] Speaker B: This guy's looking good. So. And then last night we had a branch fall. This is my Princess Persimmon overflow area here. So these are. [00:02:25] Speaker A: Wow. [00:02:25] Speaker C: Are those all Princess Persimmons? [00:02:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I have like several hundred. And then these are all flats. [00:02:31] Speaker C: Wow. [00:02:32] Speaker B: These are all flats of seedlings. So I have like a couple dozen flats of seedlings. [00:02:40] Speaker C: Wow, That's a lot. Now you were crazy, man, and I love you for it, but you are absolutely nuts. You have a lot of trees. Making a lot of pots. Have a couple little ones. You got a lot going on. [00:02:52] Speaker B: I know. Too much. Actually, some of the potters were here and they were scolding me because I have too many trees. This is greenhouse. [00:03:02] Speaker C: Wow. [00:03:05] Speaker B: Was like, oh, you should have 30 trees. That's as many as you're allowed to have. And I was like, okay, yeah. And then this is yeah, that's tough. [00:03:15] Speaker C: I guess. [00:03:17] Speaker B: Mountain hemlock that we collected this year. Really, big guy. [00:03:22] Speaker C: You collected it yourself, huh? [00:03:27] Speaker B: These are all spruces. Spruces. I wasn't planning on giving you a tour, but here we are. Mountain hemlock. [00:03:37] Speaker C: Wow. [00:03:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:03:38] Speaker B: So I guess that's a challenge because I like bonsai as much as I like pots, but. Yeah, you gotta pick your battles, right? [00:03:46] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah. How do you decide where your time goes? [00:03:53] Speaker B: There's definitely a seasonality to it because summer is the best time for me to make pots. Most of our shows in the US Are in the fall, so, like nationals or pbe. So I usually do like a huge push in the summer. And then, yeah, pots dry faster in the summer, so the production is a bit faster. So the winter is more of like R D time. And that's when I wire my trees and a little bit slower pace. [00:04:23] Speaker C: Yeah. Now, how long do pots have to dry for? What does that process look like? And first off, I. I know nothing about making bonsai pots, so if you could break anything that you explain down like you're talking to a sixth grader, I would love. I would. I would prefer that. [00:04:40] Speaker B: Well, since we have the video on and we're in my workshop, I can show you. So, like, this is a. This is a rectangle that is still very wet. It's soft, actually. The floor is like. You can move the floor and I have it upside down so that the rim is nice and flat. Clay has a memory. So if you dry it and it's all woobly when you dry it and it's not perfectly straight, then when you fire it, it's going to kind of remember that state. And then when it fires, it's going to also be kind of wavy. So you have to usually fire it, dry it upside down so that it's nice and flat. That's why all these pots are upside down. They're all drying. [00:05:23] Speaker C: Okay. [00:05:25] Speaker B: In the winter, it might take like two weeks to dry fully. And so I have two weeks to dry. [00:05:32] Speaker C: Okay. And does a big pot take longer than a small pot? [00:05:37] Speaker B: Yeah, a little bit. This is a huge, like gozan style pot. I think it took like a month to dry. This thing's huge. It's like 30 inches. [00:05:46] Speaker C: Ooh, that looks gorgeous. [00:05:50] Speaker B: But in the summer, it's much faster. It only takes like a week to dry, so. [00:05:55] Speaker C: Okay. And what percentage of dryness. I don't know what the right word is there, but how dry are you trying to get them to? Is there a percentage or some type of gauge that you use? [00:06:08] Speaker B: No. So clay changes color when it gets really dry. Potters call that bone dry. It actually looks kind of like bone and it has this consistency of bone. So it feels light, almost like it's empty. Like, it feels almost like Styrofoam. It's really light, and you just know it from experience. You know, you know, the weight of the clay, it feels really heavy when it's wet, and then it feels really light when it's dry. And you have to be really dry when you put it in the kiln because if it still has a little moisture in, it'll. All that water will turn to steam and then expand and explode. And so that's how you get explosions. So, yeah, make sure it's really dry. [00:06:52] Speaker C: Have you had many explosions? [00:06:54] Speaker B: Not as many as when I was getting started, but especially the really big pots, you'll have pockets of really fat or thick sections where a lot of moisture gets trapped, and so those tend to explode like your pot did last month or the month before. [00:07:14] Speaker C: Oh, got it, got it. No, I would assume big pots are much more challenging to create as opposed to small pots. [00:07:25] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. I mean, it's. It's like it's purely an engineering problem, not an artistic one. Like, how do you make a giant piece of ceramic not crack at that scale? Right. So, you know, designing all the, designing all the transitions from the foot to the floor properly so that the stress isn't concentrating. And it's engineering really getting the wall and the rim to the right thickness. If you just pick up like a. Like a tokoname pot, they do a very good job on their transitions. So just looking at how they do it, there's a reason that the lip is a certain curvature, for example. [00:08:06] Speaker C: Okay, can you talk a little bit more about the transitions? And once again, I know nothing about this. What does that mean exactly? And like, what types of transitions can you utilize? [00:08:20] Speaker B: Well, like, imagine you have a flat piece of clay, and then you want to put feet on it. So at that junction, you're going to have a perfect 90 degree angle. Right. And so a lot of beginner potters will leave it like that at this, like, perfect 90 degree transition. Now, the problem is when you fire the clay right at that corner, a whole bunch of stress is going to concentrate as the clay changes shape and shrinks. Right. And so all that stress right at that corner is going to create a crack right there. And so a lot of beginner potters at the feet, you'll see cracks that propagate at those transitions and then, you know, split the pot in two. So, you know, so what I mean is, like, putting a little dab of clay in that corner so that it's rounded so that. That. That spreads out the stress in that region so that there's less of a concentration. [00:09:15] Speaker C: Ah, very interesting. Nice. [00:09:19] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, it's purely. It's purely engineering has nothing to do with bonsai or pottery. [00:09:28] Speaker C: And that's your background, right? You are. You have your PhD in engineering, is that correct? [00:09:32] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, I wanted to be an artist, but. [00:09:39] Speaker C: Well, that's fantastic. You get to utilize that within creating exceptional bonsai pots. [00:09:46] Speaker B: Yeah, it's very fortunate that bonsai pot is a thing. You know, it combines my love of plants and, like, the sciencey aspects, but it's also kind of artistic. So it's like this Venn diagram that is, like, perfect for me, so I'm very happy with it. [00:10:04] Speaker C: That is fantastic. So now I guess I'm curious, how have you. How have you really studied. Not studied ceramics, but to me, it seems like you have become a very proficient ceramicist or bonsai potter or. I'm not sure what you identify as or call yourself, but it seems like you got really good really fast. I'm curious, how have you actually studied bonsai ceramics? Like, I'm just blown away by the quality of the work that you put out, and it seems like you just popped up overnight. [00:10:42] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess. Thank you. Yeah, that's a good question. I think. I've actually been doing pottery for maybe 12 years now, but only the last five or six years was I actually doing bonsai pots. So that means, like, seven years I was making plates and mugs and bowls and teapots. And so I have that foundation of pottery. Right. You know, there's a lot of potters coming up today that went straight from nothing to bonsai pots. And that learning curve is incredibly steep. So that's why it's really challenging to just jump into bonsai pots. But if you know how to make a plate, then you know how to make a bonsai pot. Right? And if you can. If you can throw a teapot, then you can definitely do a round bonsai pot. And so having that foundation is really critical, actually. [00:11:37] Speaker C: Okay. [00:11:38] Speaker B: Like Sarah Rayner and Ron Lang, right? They're traditional potters. They have that, like, they can just throw clay like nothing, because they've been making plates and bowls and mugs forever. So. And you can see that when you pick up their pot. Like, I can tell picking up a bonsai Pot. Is this person a potter or are they a bonsai potter who just started making bonsai pots? So, you know. [00:12:02] Speaker C: Fascinating. [00:12:02] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's important. Just having the holistic experience. [00:12:09] Speaker C: Yeah. Okay. So I didn't realize that you had so many years of experience making other things before you jumped into bonsai pots. That, that explains a lot to me. [00:12:20] Speaker B: My house is riddled with terrible teapots and mugs and plates. [00:12:24] Speaker C: Oh, I'm sure they're not terrible. I'm sure they're really good question for you. So I would assume that maybe plates and cups are a lot easier than bonsai pots. And then would you. Would you agree with that? And then where does the teapot rank? Is that harder than a bonsai pot or. No? [00:12:44] Speaker B: I think that the bonsai pot is the hardest form of pottery in my opinion. The aspect ratio is very challenging because it's basically like a 24 inch platter. Right. And not only that, it's got holes in the middle of it which weaken it. And it's like suspended on four feet and it needs to be perfectly flat and look good and have like a good glaze and, you know, so it's like, it's really challenging versus like a teapot. I can make a teapot and it doesn't really matter what shape or color or form it is. You just go, oh, well, that's a teapot. Right. There's no like defined aesthetic on what a teapot is. So I think that's. That challenge really excites me just how difficult it is to make a good big bonsai pot. [00:13:33] Speaker C: Seems like quite a challenge to me. Can't even imagine. [00:13:38] Speaker B: No, it's, it's, it's. You make great bonsai trees. I mean, that's. I think it's equally as challenging. It's a multi year thing to get to a point where you can make a beautiful tree. Right. It's. It's no different than that. [00:13:54] Speaker C: Sure, sure, absolutely. Now what? So are you building pots in all different manners? Meaning? So you slab build, what is it called? Coil build? You use molds? You do all of that? [00:14:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I do everything under the structure. [00:14:12] Speaker C: Do you have a favorite way of building bonsai pots or wheel throw? [00:14:17] Speaker B: Okay, well, I do everything. I'm showing you now, just my workshop. So this is a slab roller. It looks like a medieval torture device. So this is how you roll even pieces of clay. These are boxes of custom clay that I get made. These are all different kinds of molds on shelves. So these are tokonami style press Molds right here. [00:14:42] Speaker C: Wow. [00:14:44] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:14:44] Speaker B: But I also do coil building. These are my pottery wheels here. So I do a lot of wheel throwing. This is another one. And then in the other room, we have slip casting molds. So we took over my garage, and so this is another studio. So these are all slip casting molds down here. Just lots and lots of slip casting mold. [00:15:09] Speaker C: Okay, can you break down for me what exactly is a slip casting mold? [00:15:16] Speaker B: So I heard a bit of your talk with Richard Kearney at the pbe. So that's. That's his technique where you take the liquid clay and you pour it in a mold. [00:15:28] Speaker C: Got it, Got it. Makes sense. Okay. [00:15:30] Speaker B: Yeah. It's a very, very quick way to make bonsai pots very precisely, but you can't really make them bigger than six inches because it gets really unwieldy. [00:15:40] Speaker C: Okay. [00:15:43] Speaker B: I like press molding the most, so most of my work these days is press molded, but press molding. [00:15:49] Speaker C: Okay. [00:15:49] Speaker B: Yeah. I want to get good at slab molding, slap slab building like a Gyzon. So I've been focusing on that the last year or so. So you'll see a lot more of that in the coming years. [00:16:06] Speaker C: Awesome. Now, in Tokoname is. And I'm forgetting all these terms, so. So I would assume that Gyozan, when he builds his handmade custom containers, those are. What do you call it? Coil built. Is that correct? [00:16:27] Speaker B: So he'll do a. He'll use both slabs and coils in his process. [00:16:32] Speaker C: Okay. Okay. [00:16:34] Speaker B: There's actually a lot of great YouTube videos on it where he. He shows the process and then he cleverly edits out critical steps. [00:16:45] Speaker C: Interesting. Interesting. Okay. But the majority of Tokonami pots, they're not wheel thrown. They are built with molds. Correct? [00:16:56] Speaker B: Right. Far and above. That's the most common process in Tokoname. They have a. Tokoname has a very long history of making precise ceramic objects going back 100 years. So they have a lot of that expertise. A lot of Japan's sewer systems were built with Tokonami sewer pipe, and they would use these giant press molds to make the sewer pipe. And also all of their electrical infrastructure used as insulators from Tokonami. So there's a lot of, like, intergenerational knowledge in Tokonami that we just don't have. Any of us. [00:17:34] Speaker C: Absolutely. Now, how do you make a press mold? And by the way, so anything I ask you, I just want you to know I can absolutely edit anything out. And I apologize if I ask you any proprietary information that you don't want to give away secrets or anything like that. So please just let me know and don't feel like you have to answer any of my questions. If anything, I'm probably asking them out of ignorance and I just don't understand. So just, just want to give you a heads up there. [00:18:06] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's okay. So I know these days a lot of people use 3D printing or other means to make molds, but I use the traditional Japanese and Chinese technique of using wood and clay to make the master. The master is called a genkai, or it means original form. And I will spend several days making like the perfect bonsai pot out of clay. And I use a lot of fixtures, I use wooden profiles. So I do a lot of woodwork to get the shapes perfect. And I will just spend a hell of a lot of time making a perfect Konsai pot and then I take a casting of that and plaster. So I don't use like any computers. I don't do, you know, any, any sort of science things. It's all clay and wood to make the master. [00:19:00] Speaker C: Okay, now, in that same vein in my, in my chat with Richard Kearney, what are your thoughts on the whole 3D printing thing? [00:19:11] Speaker B: I mean, I'm all about the traditional way of learning how to do things. I don't think there's anything wrong with the 3D printing except that it doesn't have that handmade feel when you're done, you know, because it'll be too precise. Like, you want the pot to be precise, but not too precise. Right. You don't want it to look like machine made. You want it to look handmade still. So when you look at, like really nice Kowatari Chinese pots, like at the Kokufu, they're really precise, but they still have that handmade quality. Like, they look like nature. They exist in nature. Right. Like, the rim might be wobbly, the foot might not be exactly even because it's still molded. But it's handmade molded. And that quality I like. Like, they didn't have computers back then. They used wood, just like I'm doing today. And so that's why I think there's no reason to 3D print. Sure, you can make these, like, really crazy forms, but, you know, maybe that's. I think they're a little too crazy if they're, you know, maybe they're cool. That doesn't mean that they're good pots. They might be cool pots, maybe too loud. So, yeah, I like, I like a traditional technique myself. [00:20:27] Speaker C: Yeah, very Interesting. Well, I really appreciate all the work that you create, and I think you are really a gift to the Western world in terms of Bonsai pottery. The pots that you are creating are absolutely phenomenal, and I love them. And I also love that you can make larger sizes. I think that's absolutely something that we are lacking here in the country, and so really appreciate that about you. [00:20:59] Speaker B: Well, thank you. You're too kind. Yep. I think more people should make larger pots, to be honest, it's. The market is kind of bare. [00:21:11] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah. Now, now, do you know Nakawatari pots? Anything that is over a hundred years that originates in China? Are. Were those pots all wood fired? [00:21:27] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, likely. I mean, if it's at 100 years, it could have used oil, but more than likely, it was wood. [00:21:37] Speaker C: Got it. How's the kiln doing? [00:21:43] Speaker B: It's. It's lagging a little, so I'm going to adjust it. [00:21:46] Speaker C: Cool, cool. Take your time. [00:21:48] Speaker B: Yeah, you want the. You want the temperature rise to be really. Even when you're firing big pots. When. When big pots crack, it's usually because you fired unevenly. So, like, one part of the pot could be hotter than the other part pot side of the pot. And that's where you get that stress I was talking about. That's how things crack. So firing really gradually, very evenly, is sort of the key to big pots. The Gylzon, he'll actually fire for something like 48 hours, which is ridiculous. It's a really long, really long firing, but I'm much faster. I might do it in 12 hours. [00:22:31] Speaker C: Okay, interesting. So you fire all in a gas kiln, correct? [00:22:40] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I actually have three kilns. This is my big kiln I'm showing on the video. I think it's like 15 cubic feet. Might be bigger. I forget the number. And then this is my smaller gas kiln, and then I have an electric kiln in the other room. [00:23:00] Speaker C: Nice. And what would you say are the advantages? Or why do you go with a gas kiln as opposed to electric or wood fired? [00:23:10] Speaker B: Oh, hands down, gas is the best. Just on every regard. [00:23:14] Speaker C: Okay. [00:23:15] Speaker B: I mean, how long do you want to talk about it? Right. On an electric kiln, there are heating elements on the outside perimeter of it. Right. So they look like light bulb filaments, and they heat up and glow from the outside of the kiln. So the inside of the kiln, like the very middle of the kiln, doesn't have any heating element. And so now you have a temperature gradient. So if you put A big bonsai pot in there. The walls of the pot are going to be hotter than the middle of the pot. Right. And so you end up with a lot of stress concentration, and you end up cracking the pot on an electric kiln. So it's really hard to do big pots in electric kiln unless it's really big. So the electric kiln has heating elements on the outside perimeter, and for that reason, there's a really strong temperature gradient between the outside of the kiln and the inside. And so if you put a big bonsai pot there, you're going to have a hot perimeter and a cold interior on the pot. And so now you're going to have stress concentrations and cracking. So it's really hard to make a really big bonsai pot in an electric kiln. So conversely. [00:24:35] Speaker C: Makes sense. [00:24:35] Speaker B: Yeah. The gas kiln, it's actually like a pressure vessel. You have, like, turbulent gas movement inside the kiln, so the temperature is much more even. And so the middle of the pot and the outside of the pot are heating up uniformly. And not to mention, with the gas kiln, you can now control the atmosphere of the kiln. So you can do, like, reduction effects. You can starve the fire of oxygen and create cool atmospheric effects on the pot, but you can't do that in electric kiln. [00:25:12] Speaker C: Okay, now would you say. I feel like a lot of people that are just getting into ceramics, they start with an electric kiln. Is the gas kiln more of a professional kiln as opposed to the electric kiln, more amateur, or is that not necessarily the case in general? [00:25:33] Speaker B: It is the case because electric kilns are cheaper and they're much easier to learn. You literally press a button and you can walk away and it'll fire on its own. So they're great to have and to learn. I started on an electric kiln, but then, like I said, there's a lot of limitations. So professionals tend to get gas kilns. They're actually cheaper to fire a gas kiln. So if you're doing. If you have a really big kiln, you end up gravitating to gas. But that's not to say pros don't use electric. A lot of pros still use electric kilns, even in Tokoname. I think Ikosan uses an electric helm, and I think Biga uses an electric kiln, but they're, like, massive. [00:26:18] Speaker C: Okay. [00:26:18] Speaker B: But they also make little pots, so it doesn't matter to them. [00:26:23] Speaker C: Makes sense. Have you. Have you considered wood firing? Are you interested in that does that pique your curiosity or your interest very much. [00:26:32] Speaker B: Yeah. A lot of people ask that. That's like the most inefficient way to fire a pot in terms of energy. Like, I don't know if you know, but you need like several cords of wood just to fire with a wood fire kiln. And, you know, it's cool. I want to learn it because of the traditional aspect. But you also get locked into a certain aesthetic with the wood firing. You know, when you imagine what a wood fired pot looks like, you know, you know, you know what I mean? It's got ash on it, it looks wild and that's fine and all. I could also replicate that with a gas kiln. So I'm putting like wood ash on my pots to kind of give that feeling. It's not exactly the same, but yeah, I think it's just, you know, where the hell do you get a wood fired kiln and that much wood? [00:27:25] Speaker A: And then. [00:27:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I don't think it's what America needs right now because now that pot, if I make it in my gas kiln, I could charge $200. Now I have to charge $800 because it took three days to fire it and a whole quart of wood. And I don't know that that's what America needs right now. Maybe later. [00:27:44] Speaker C: Yeah, makes sense. Got it. I. I do like the aesthetic that wood fired creates. However, it seems like an absolutely nuts process. And I agree with you. We need more pots, more big pots. And it, what you just said, how labor intensive, time intensive wood firing is. Totally get that. [00:28:12] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:13] Speaker C: So tell me now, you had a couple Tokoname potters come to your yard and you've spent some time with some Tokoname potters. What was that like? Can you tell me who came and visited you? [00:28:27] Speaker B: Oh, yeah. I'm moving to a different room now. So I've been going to Tokoname for like six years now. Basically every time I go to Japan, I visit Tokonami. And so I've made a relationship with a few of the potters. So Kakuzan came earlier this year to do a workshop with the vsop and he also spent a week in my studio here. So it was pretty cool to have like a legit Tokoname potter in my studio for a whole week. And I could just ask questions and we made pots together and we ate dinner every night and went places and yeah, it was a lot of fun and I learned a lot. Yeah, I mean, and like Kakuzan is almost like my grandfather. Now, like, just having. Having an older Japanese guy in my life is good. Just to have, like, that, that Ji Chan, like, influence. He's a very good friend. [00:29:27] Speaker C: That's rad. So cool. Can you tell me anything, maybe, that you've learned from him? [00:29:36] Speaker B: Oh, I mean, you know, where do I start? Right. He's got Kakuzan, is the president of the Tokoname Potters Guild. So he oversees something like 60 potters in Tokoname. Not just bonsai potters, but potters in general. So he knows everything about everything, basically all the potters, all the drama, all the techniques. I mean, he took me to the clay factory where they make the clay, the various blend, and he's introduced me to all these different potters. He's the one who got ICO to come to pbe. So he's been very supportive of me and American Bonsai indirectly. So. But yeah, practically. He's taught me, like, different clay formulas. He's always yelling at me about the way I make pots. He's trying to improve, like, oh, you got to do it this way, things like that. [00:30:35] Speaker C: Oh, so a lot of small, minor changes in the way that you construct pots. [00:30:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, it runs the gamut, right? Like, he's a. I'm looking at a. I'm looking at a tree while I'm talking to you. He's. Where do I. Yeah, I mean, I've made pots with him next to me. He's taught me how to hand build in the traditional Japanese way. So he's kind of pushed me to do more hand building because he came and when he saw you should branch out more into hand building. So, I mean, I. I have always wanted to go back to hand building. So that's sort of the direction I'm going based on his feedback. Actually, Gyozon said the same to me. I brought this little album of pots and I showed Gyozon and he looked at it all and he was like, not too impressed because he's really into hand building. So he's like, I want to see your hand building stuff. [00:31:42] Speaker C: So, okay. Ah, how much longer does it take to make the same pot if you hand build it, as opposed to use a press mold? [00:31:54] Speaker B: I would say, like four times longer. Is. It is a good rough estimate. I mean, it could be a lot more than that. [00:32:01] Speaker C: Okay. Yeah. [00:32:04] Speaker B: And so consequently, you gotta charge four times as much. Right. And so, yeah, it's kind of a trade off. [00:32:12] Speaker C: So my question, what I was curious about is are, do you have, like, different lines in Your, the pots that you sell currently, do you have hand built ones that cost more than your slab or excuse me, not your slab built, but your press mold pots? [00:32:32] Speaker A: I. I don't have any, like, defined product lines and especially if the hand built stuff, I don't say like, ah, this is the pot that I make that's hand built. So I just kind of do what I do. Does that make sense? [00:32:47] Speaker C: Totally. Yeah, yeah, yeah. [00:32:49] Speaker A: There, there are popular pots that people always request and always want to buy. And so if I do a big show like pbe, I have to have one of these and one of these colors because someone always wants it. So there's, there's kind of that strategizing as well. Like somebody always wants a 28 inch forest tray in blue. Right? [00:33:08] Speaker C: For sure, for sure. Very nice. [00:33:14] Speaker A: So congratulations on your award at the pbe. I don't think I said that yet. [00:33:22] Speaker C: Oh, thank you so much. Really, really appreciate it. And thank you so much for building that moco for me. I absolutely love that pot and I think it worked well with the tree. Were you, were you okay with it? [00:33:37] Speaker A: The display? [00:33:39] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. The container tree, the pot tree combo. Do you think it worked okay? [00:33:46] Speaker A: Yeah, I think it was fine. The pot, I don't think it like added anything artistic. The composition, it supported it, which is fine. Right. You weren't trying to make a statement with the pot, but it was the right shape and size and feeling for the tree. Right. Like you weren't trying to do anything artistic with the pot. And so in that sense, it was the right pot. [00:34:15] Speaker C: Nice. Well, you know, at some point in the future, and we do not have to do this anytime soon, but if you, if you had any thoughts, I'd totally be open to. Open to buying another pot from you and putting that redwood in it. You know, like, if you have a better idea, I'd totally be game for that. So thank you so much. [00:34:37] Speaker A: I think it could use a stronger lip. As I recall, that pot had a really narrow lip, which looked a little weak, but your tree is very wide and stable, so there could be more mass in the pot, I think, to give it that. That oomph. [00:34:57] Speaker C: Yeah. In fact, you know, Peter T has a very similar one to mine that you made as well. And I think there was an. I'm pretty sure there was an olive in it at the pbe, if you remember that one. And I thought, yeah, yeah. Almost considered trying to trade him for it or buy it off of him, but then the olive went in it and. And he wanted to Use it. So. But I think that that olive, the one that the olive was in, had a bit of a stronger lip. [00:35:29] Speaker A: That's right. Yeah. And I could easily make another one of those olive pots that. That's not a problem. [00:35:35] Speaker C: Solid. [00:35:37] Speaker A: That was a 24 inch moko, which uses 25 pounds of clay. [00:35:45] Speaker C: That's a lot of clay. 25 pounds of clay. Speaking of which, one of the clay types that I particularly love is the California clay that you've been collecting. It seems to have little black specks or black dots in it. Is that correct? [00:36:05] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:36:06] Speaker A: So I don't collect that clay. I've been collecting different Oregon clays. [00:36:11] Speaker C: Okay. [00:36:11] Speaker A: But yes, I. My unglazed pots are mostly made with blended California clay that I developed. [00:36:20] Speaker C: Okay. [00:36:20] Speaker A: And yeah, you're right. So the spots are tiny bits of feldspar that are kind of remain from the mining process. And usually if you buy clay at like a clay pottery store, they'll take steps to remove those to have a more homogenous product. But I like that sort of traditional look because a traditional Chinese pot will have those dots. And so I made. I left those there intentionally to have texture. [00:36:59] Speaker C: Yeah. I think that clay body is really stunning. I absolutely love it. I hope you continue to use that. So that's a California clay, but it's not a collected clay. It's not like a wild clay. It's one that you can purchase from somewhere. [00:37:15] Speaker A: So I purchased the dry materials from several different vendors, and then I blend it myself. Those vendors, they mine the clay for completely non pottery purposes. Interesting. They'll mine it for sewer pipes or tile or bricks, but it doesn't really matter when you blend it properly to make a bonsai pot. You know, I'm doing lots of tests to make the chemical composition right for what I'm doing. I'm actually the sort of. The origin of that is I was trying to mimic Gyozon's clay. So when I visited Gyozon, I took samples of his clay. And I'm always looking at his pots, like the final fired ones. And so I'm figuring out his iron content, the types of particle size he uses to get that look. And so what I've done is tried to mimic that using California clay. And so I'm always tweaking it. And so new this year, I have like a new formula that I think is really close to his look. You want that really nice kind of brownish purple color. Nothing too metallic or red or pallid. You want just the right amount of color. So that's my goal with that clay. [00:38:45] Speaker C: That makes sense. So I would say Gyozan is my personal favorite tokoname potter, and I love his unglazed pots. So makes sense why I like that California clay. So that's what you refer to it as, the one with the specs, Just your California clay mix. Custom California clay mix. [00:39:05] Speaker A: Yeah. On. On the. On. On the hot user side, it's const. The clay you're getting is constantly changing. I'm always tweaking it, so it's like a moving target. But, yes, in general, it's the California clay series. I've had, like, five or six different revisions of it now. So what I do, I order, like, several tons of it at once from a clay manufacturer. And when you order several tons, they'll. They'll blend whatever you want, basically. So that's how you get custom clay mixes. [00:39:37] Speaker C: Ah, so cool. Yeah, that California clay is spectacular. I want to see you keep using it. And I. I'm just, like, in love with it. I think it looks so good. [00:39:50] Speaker A: Well, thank you. And there's nothing special about California. So, like, if any potters want to do this in North Carolina, there's lots of really great clay in North Carolina. Or Georgia, Texas, Colorado, basically anywhere. Right. America is such a big country. I'm sure there's unique clays that can be made anywhere. [00:40:13] Speaker C: Yeah. Now, so you said that you were dissecting Gyozon's clay body. How are you doing that, if you don't mind me asking? [00:40:28] Speaker A: So I run. I actually took samples back to Oregon with me of his wet clay, and I fire test bars of Gyozon's clay to different temperatures, and then you measure the porosity of those samples to figure out what temperature he's firing at exactly and to what extent. And that's also how you can figure out the iron content of the clay and just looking at the particle cross section when you sieve it. So just knowing those kinds of, like, those three pieces of information can tell you a whole lot about the clay. But ultimately, you have to figure it out using materials you have in the United States. So I run hundreds of tests on clay samples where I'm mixing this, this, and this and this and firing it and seeing what it looks like, and then you iterate on that forever. So it's just lots of empirical testing. [00:41:24] Speaker C: Wow. Very interesting about reverse engineering that. Now, do all Tokoname potters have different clay that they utilize? [00:41:36] Speaker A: Yeah, they all have. So most of them use a kumii. That's the. That's the. What do you call it, Collective, who makes the clay for them. And they'll put in an order and say, I want such and such properties in my clay. And then that will be their sort of clay mix. And so those. Those recipes become sort of secret between the clay maker and the potter. And so other potters aren't going to know their specific clay recipes. So that's kind of how they do it. [00:42:14] Speaker C: Ah, very cool, Very fun. And have you had access to other Tokonomic potter clay, like the wet clay? [00:42:26] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I. Anytime I visit a potter in Tokunamin, I visited like over a dozen now of their bonsai potters. I always look at their clay and talk about their clay with them. And so, you know, feeling Shuho's clay and comparing that to Ikgo's clay, you know, I can. I just. I put a piece of clay in my hand and I move it around and I can feel the particle size and I can look at what kind of iron they're using and in what proportions, how plastic is the clay? You know, can you bend it into a ring or does it snap? Little things like this that potters just know, you know, when you touch clay. Interestingly enough, Gyozon, he doesn't use Tokonamic clay. He gets his clay shipped in from Shigaraki because the alumina content's higher and he likes that kind of look. And then someone like Iko, he'll actually ship in half his clay from China because he wants that really red look on his unglazed pots. And only the Chinese clay can really get that red. So he buys his clay from China. It's all these little things. [00:43:35] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, totally. Very interesting. Can you define plastic, what that means exactly? [00:43:45] Speaker A: You played with Play doh, right? As a kid. And all plastic means is that you can roll it into a snake and you can bend it around like clay. Like when you think of clay like dough, but not all clay is like that. Some clay, you can't even roll it into a snake. It'll just crumble into pieces. And so, which has its advantages because if it's not very plastic, it tends to shrink less. And if a clay shrinks less, it tends to crack less. And you can do other cool things with it. So it's just one of the dozen parameters you need to think about with clay. [00:44:23] Speaker C: Oh, okay. So I imagine it's all about finding the right balance between the two and depending on what your goals are for. [00:44:31] Speaker A: The outcome, as with bonsai and everything else in life, yeah. [00:44:37] Speaker C: Very nice. Very nice. Now, I think I heard you speak on tokonami clay in a previous podcast. Is it notoriously difficult to work with and not very plastic compared with a lot of American clays or clays that we're used to? Is that correct? [00:44:58] Speaker A: It really depends. When we say tokonomic clay, there's actually dozens of, like, subtypes of clay. And so I can't make a blanket statement, but I think I was referring to bizen clay in a previous podcast, which is notoriously not plastic. Bizen is farther south. It's south of Osaka. It's, like, past Himeji almost. And their clay is not very plastic. [00:45:28] Speaker C: Totally makes sense. [00:45:30] Speaker A: So clay. I could talk for, like, 10 hours on clay. Like, we haven't even talked about Chinese clay or Korean clay or American clay. You know, it's. Clay is really interesting to me. [00:45:41] Speaker C: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Me too. I was wondering. So I know that you collect some of your clay out in the wild. Is that still a big part of your practice? [00:45:55] Speaker A: It's not a huge part of my practice. It's more of. More of like an academic exercise. I think every potter should do that once in their life, actually go and understand where clay comes from and what does it look like in the wild. How do you process it? How do you analyze the clay and test it, like, doing all that? I think today in the modern world, it's too easy to go to a pottery store and then you just buy clay. Right. But you have no idea where it come from. It's probably a blend of, like, you know, 10 different ingredients, and it's too homogenous. It's made in a factory. And so the pot that you make with that, it's going to look like crap. It's going to look like ikea. Right. And so I think getting back to the roots of pottery is important. And so the Japanese potters that I hang around with, they are very close to where the clay's from. They're in Tokonama because that's where the clay is. And, you know, they understand the origins of their process, and I think that's important. [00:47:08] Speaker C: Yeah. I don't know if it's just a romantic idea or what the deal is. I just enjoy collecting things. I like collecting yamadori. But the idea of going out into the wild and collecting wild clay is just, like, so fun and exciting to me. But I feel like maybe it is just a romantic idea. What. Can you talk about that a little bit more? Like, what does that actually look like? Where are you Collecting these clays from. What are you looking for? [00:47:40] Speaker A: Yeah, it's another, another topic I'd love to talk for two hours on geology. So I love geology. Where you find clay is very intimately related to geology. So I have a lot of books on Oregon geology. I read a lot of U.S. department of Mines and the U.S. geological Survey papers where they map out the different geologic patterns in Oregon. I live in Oregon, so I focus on Oregon. And so actually for Oregon, I don't know if you knew this, but During World War II there was a lot of surveys done in Oregon because we have a lot of great aluminum resources. So during World War II there was a need for aluminum. And so the U.S. geological Department or whatever, they mapped out very detailed maps on where you can find high aluminum clay, which is exactly what I want for bonsai pots. And so I was looking at these maps and then I got my, my newborn baby and my wife and we rented an Airbnb and we just drove to different mines and I collected samples to take back and then fire and test and things like that. It's as exciting as it sounds. Digging dirt, right? It's kind of like Yamadori hunting that kind of excitement when you find some good clay. Yeah, but it's not practical, right? Because I told you I use tons of clay a year. There's just no way I can drive out and get tons of clay unless I live there. It's not practical. [00:49:23] Speaker C: For sure. For sure. And like, are these the areas that you found your best clay sources? And I don't want you to give any specifics away or anything like that, but I'm imagining, like, what do they look like? Are they like, you know, near rivers or under mountains or hills or in canyons? [00:49:48] Speaker A: Clay is everywhere. Clay is in your backyard, clay is in your front lawn. The challenge is finding clay that's appropriate for high temperature ceramics. And the key thing is the aluminum content. And usually that aluminum comes from eroding rocks. Like, if you think about granite, when the granite decomposes for millions of years, it will make like a high aluminum clay deposit. And so those usually are found, like you said, in rivers or valleys, but you could also go to the source. You can go straight to the mountain and then get chunks of rock and you can process it. That's called primary clay. So there's different ways of doing it and there's a lot of traditions about it. So like in China, in southern China, they, they use a lot of primary clays. They'll like Yixing pots are primary clays they'll actually take chunks of rock and grind it using, you know, water hammers, and then taking the dust and then. And then settling the dust in water. That's very labor intensive. But in Japan, they'll. They'll just go to the valley or the river or the rice patty, and then they'll collect clay that's settled there over millions of years, naturally. So it depends. Here in Oregon, I was using primary clay, so I was actually taking giant chunks of clay and grinding it myself. [00:51:19] Speaker C: How do you grind it? [00:51:23] Speaker A: So if I had a factory, I would use like, you know, a massive grinding machine, but I was like, manually using a corn grinder. Like, it takes, like, you take foreign corn kernels and you can grind it to make cornbread. But I was using that to grind the clay into tiny particles, and I was using a ball mill to mill the clay into finer particles that you can use for pottery. [00:51:52] Speaker C: Ah, wow. That sounds like a process right there. [00:51:58] Speaker A: A lot of work, but I learned a lot, and that was. That was the point. Like, so now I understand, you know, why are those little black chunks in the clay? Well, I saw it myself in the wilds, you know. [00:52:12] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And did you mix some of those wild clays that you collected and processed in with some of the clay that you've purchased? [00:52:22] Speaker A: So I actually made a few bonsai pots with 100% wild Oregon clay, and they actually looked really good. It's just. It's just not. It's just not sustainable. The quant. The quant. The quantities aren't high enough. Right. [00:52:38] Speaker C: Makes sense. Makes total sense. Yeah. Cool. How are you doing? Do you want to take a quick break pretty soon, check on the kiln? [00:52:50] Speaker A: Yeah, that's a good suggestion. How long's it's been. Let me. [00:52:55] Speaker C: Okay. How's the kiln doing? [00:53:00] Speaker A: It's at 2100, so a few hundred to go. [00:53:05] Speaker C: Okay. Nice. Nice. Is that. Is that a good thing or bad thing? I have no. No frame of reference there. [00:53:13] Speaker A: It's not good. It's not good or bad. It's. It's climbing steadily. It just means maybe around 4:30 it'll finish. And so I. I just have to go out and turn the gas up or down every 30 minutes or so. [00:53:27] Speaker C: Makes sense. Cool. Well, please feel free to interrupt and go check on the kiln. I really appreciate all your time, and I know that you are very, very busy. So because of that, I greatly appreciate you doing this with me. Thank you so much now. [00:53:44] Speaker A: My pleasure. It's all good. I love to talk about pottery, they don't let us talk much. The potters, mostly the bonsai people, get all the attention. Rightly so. But, yes, anytime I get to talk about pots, I love it. [00:54:01] Speaker C: Yeah. Well, do you talk with many Americans or Western potters, or is it mostly all the people from Japan? [00:54:13] Speaker A: That's a good, good, good observation, because I'm very siloed. No, I don't talk with American potters because I'm mostly interested in Asian ways of doing things. And I don't know too many potters that are that focused like I am. Like, a lot of the Europeans and Americans are asking, you know, what is the future of bonsai pots and what are some innovative shapes we can make? But I'm more interested in, you know, how to do the traditional thing. How exactly do you make that Kowatari pot? Right. I don't really see anyone else trying to do that. Like, I am. So in that sense, I feel lonely. [00:55:03] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Okay. Yeah. I guess, personally, my personal taste in bonsai pot is I really like the classics. I like the classic shapes. And for me, it seems like making the classic shapes, but doing it at a extremely high level to where you're not achieving perfection in the sense like using 3D printers. And, you know, if we had AI create this perfect pot like you were talking about earlier, I want it to look a little handmade, but perfectly handmade, like, to the degree that a person could do make a bonsai pot at the very highest level. I want to see that, and I feel like that is enough. So I really love that you are sticking with classics for the most part, but just trying to bump the level up that you are chasing after on a regular basis. [00:56:10] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:56:10] Speaker A: Thank you. I think you. You put it. That was a good way to put it. Like, perfectly handmade. That's a good way to put it. I'm gonna have to steal that. [00:56:19] Speaker C: Perfectly handmade. Nice. Yes. And I love your pots, I guess. Yeah. Are there any Western potters that you. That you partic. That you appreciate maybe aspects of their work? [00:56:38] Speaker A: Well, yeah, lots. So I don't. It's not that I don't like Western potters. There's a lot of really great ones that I respect a lot, like Ron Lang and Sarah Rayner. They're. They're just so deft at what they do. I don't make pots like they do, and I don't necessarily like their aesthetic so much, but when I look at their pots, I know that they're very talented potters. Like, you can just Tell the quality of it, that they're much, much better than I am, for example, at making an offal, because they do. They've made thousands of them. Right. And I, I absolutely appreciate that, that level of talent. And I guess more recently, I, I really like April Grigsby because, yeah, she, she's making those traditional forms at an incredibly high level and like, completely by hand, which is insane. Like, the amount of time it must take to, to make some of the rectangles that she's making. And so I respect her a lot for that. [00:57:50] Speaker C: Nice. Yeah, I have noticed her containers as well and have been very, very impressed with them. And she seems to be doing some, some phenomenal shapes. So that's great. [00:58:03] Speaker A: But food for thought. Like, you know Scott Elser, Right. He's like a elder in our club. [00:58:10] Speaker C: Yep. [00:58:11] Speaker A: But. But he was over at my studio and he just, he had an interesting observation, like, who in America would want to buy a American pot that looks Japanese? Like, you know, if I just pick on April, like, what makes an April pot stand out? That we wouldn't just buy a Japanese pot, for example, like, why buy an American made Japanese pot? Like, that was his question to me. He's kind of challenging me. Right? That's a good question. Most of the American potters, they're intentionally not making it look Japanese. They want it to be an American pot, whatever the hell that means. And so that's why you're seeing a lot of really creative takes on what a bonsai pot can be. So, you know, that's sort of the. That's sort of the key question for the future generation of potters to tackle. [00:59:11] Speaker C: Yeah, interesting. Yeah. I don't know, I personally, I mean, maybe. Maybe I'm boring or I don't know what it is exactly, but I just feel like my tastes are more traditional and maybe that. I think for a lot of people that's kind of boring, and that's totally fair. But I do like the classics, and I think about it, like, in other aspects or areas of my life. Like, I was really into guitar for a long time, and there's these classic electric guitar shapes, like the Stratocaster, the Telecaster, the Les Paul. They're very iconic, traditional shapes. And I like, I like the same when it comes to bonsai pots as well. And maybe it's just because I have a bias because I've seen them so many times, or. I don't know, maybe it's because it's just a classic iconic thing, but that's what I tend to like. But I also. I don't know, I. I like the idea of a Western potter creating those shapes in with their own vision. Uh, but I think if you're going to do something super radical, then it better be extremely high level or I. I also think it's okay to just put a little bit of personal flair on a traditional type shape and that. I think that's part of why I like your pots a lot, because I do see a lot of tradition, but I see little bits of your own flair. And I think that for me, there's definitely a sense of some American pride there when I see your pots. And so I really like them and respect them heavily. [01:00:57] Speaker A: Thank you. Yeah. My goal is not to make, like, exact copies of a Kowatari pot. I do want to, like you said, put a little twist on it. So all of my pots are. There's something about it that's not exactly traditional. Like the shape might be untraditional or the glaze might be untraditional. So you'll see a. You know, I try to do something different each time, and I definitely don't want to just make a straight copy, but I don't want to. You know, I. Like. You were saying, I don't think the bonsai pot should be the focus of a display that the tree should. So you don't want the pot to be too attention getting. Right. [01:01:41] Speaker C: For sure. I think not too loud. [01:01:44] Speaker A: Yeah. What I've observed is that American pot collectors and bonsai people in general, they sort of look at the bonsai pot in a vacuum and they say, oh, that's a cool pot. And then they might buy the pot and collect the pot. But in reality, that pot is completely useless for a display. Right. It's way too loud. The proportions are not usable. It's too cool on its own to be usable in a bonsai display. And so the reason the classic shapes rise to the surface is because those are the ones that work. Right. So we're not wrong to like the classic shapes. Those are the timeless ones for sure. [01:02:32] Speaker C: 100%. Awesome. I guess one thing I was curious to. To hit on with you. I know we're. We're kind of wrapping up 2024 right now. It's the day after Christmas that we're recording this right now. Was curious what things look like, maybe what goals you have going into 2025. [01:03:01] Speaker A: That's a good question. I'm always inundated with commission requests, and so usually this is when I decide which projects I want to take on or can take on because some of them are more interesting to me than others. I'm going to be doing a lot of interesting collab work this coming year. And new this year, I'm doing a lot of travel speaking events, which is unusual for a potter. Right. Usually you have like bonsai people come to a club meeting, but I'll be doing some little mini sales and club things. So that's kind of fun. [01:03:42] Speaker C: That's so cool. [01:03:43] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. And I'm always doing R D stuff, so just constantly tweaking the clay and constantly working on new glazes. [01:03:51] Speaker C: For sure. For sure. That's great. What about like more long term? Is there like, like, what do you. What do you envision Tokotake pottery or ceramics or whatever you want to call it? What is your business going to look like in say like 20 years down the road? Any ideas there? [01:04:14] Speaker A: That's a. That's a damn good question. [01:04:16] Speaker B: I have no idea. [01:04:19] Speaker A: At some point I will do this full time because I still just do this on nights and weekends. So I think it'll change completely when that time comes. Right. I'll just have a lot of time to honestly dedicate to this. So you'll see a lot more events and online presence and collaborations. I would love to scale up one day, like have a bigger studio, bigger kiln, maybe have people to help me, like understudies kind of thing, you know, so that those are like my 20 year goals. By then my kids will be old enough so maybe they can help and we'll have like a second generation thing like Sokonami. [01:05:06] Speaker C: Oh, that would be rad. Love it. Love to hear it. Yeah, I. Man, I. The amount of production that you already put out is just mind blowing to me. Mind boggling to me. With your two little ones, full time career and just everything that you do. I was so impressed at the Pacific Bonsai Expo. The amount of containers that you brought was just crazy. What was like the prep up to that point? How did that look? And like, what was that like? Just in terms of the family dynamics and working, Was that pretty stressful? [01:05:46] Speaker A: Yeah. So when you see a giant pile of pots, what you're actually looking at is like nine months of stockpiling. It's not that I barfed all those out that month. I'm stockpiling all summer. I'm doing a kiln firing every weekend basically. And I guess day to day I work 9 to 5 and then after dinner and the kids are bathed and put to bed, then I do pottery until like midnight every day, and then I'm always working in parallel. So I have, like, four or five pots working at one time. [01:06:25] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:06:26] Speaker A: And so there's a lot of efficiency of scale. I will say, when you do it that way. So then I can make, like a dozen or more pots a week. So if you think of it that way, you know, every month I'm making 50 or so pots, and so the stockpiling happens. So then that's how I can amass 200 pots for PBE by October. So, like, as we speak, I'm already working on pots for three other shows. So, like, in the kiln right now I have pots for later this year. [01:07:01] Speaker C: What shows are you going to this year and. Or 2025. [01:07:06] Speaker A: So 2024 was my biggest year in terms of shows. We did three different shows, which is a lot. Next year, I'm only doing two club shows and nationals. So one show, I think it'll be a show in Phoenix and a little show in Denver and then nationals. [01:07:30] Speaker C: Gotcha. And now are you gonna get all the containers to nationals? Are you gonna drive them there? [01:07:37] Speaker A: Someone drives them there. Not me. We usually charter a van, and then I fly and meet it there. [01:07:46] Speaker C: Great. [01:07:47] Speaker A: So that's worked out well for us. And then if anyone needs to buy trees and nationals, we can drive it back to the west coast for them. So that's how we pay for it also. [01:07:57] Speaker C: Oh, cool. I actually, before this. Before. Before this podcast, I was podcasting with Andrew Robson, and he was telling me he's going to nationals as well. Are you guys coordinating that at all? [01:08:11] Speaker A: I think, yeah, we talked about it. He was actually over here a couple days ago. He's probably gonna drive on his own. He wouldn't want to put his trees with my pots anyway. [01:08:22] Speaker B: It's. [01:08:22] Speaker A: It's gonna be a mess. [01:08:24] Speaker C: Yeah, Got it. Gotcha. [01:08:29] Speaker A: Yeah. The Portland club is very strong. Yeah. [01:08:33] Speaker C: We need to ask you about that. [01:08:36] Speaker A: Go ahead. [01:08:38] Speaker C: No, no, you're thinking. [01:08:39] Speaker A: I'm just trying to, like. The club's gonna try. We're gonna try to, like, maybe have all the club members go in on a transport to nationals because we have such a deep talent pool in our club. I mentioned Scott. Scott Elser. But we also have, like, you know, Lee Cheadle's great. We got Dennis Fautia. Andrew, of course. Really? Portland's where it's at. I could go on and on. [01:09:05] Speaker C: It's very apparent. Yeah, no, it's extremely apparent. I'm jealous. I still haven't been. I haven't done the, like, Bonsai tour in Portland. I really want to come to Portland at some. Some point in time. But I was curious specifically, like, why do you think the Bonsai Club, Bonsai Society of Portland. Sorry, blank in there. Why do you think it is so successful compared with other clubs? Because it seems like it's the number one club in the nation or very close. I hear good things about the San Diego Bonsai Club as well, but I seem to hear about the Portland Bonsai Club all the time. Like what. What are the keys to success with the Portland Club? [01:09:52] Speaker A: There's many, many things that need to work to have a successful club. So we have excellent professional support. So you have like your Michael Hagedorns and your Ryan Neals live down the street, right. And your Andrew Robson's. And so having that bullpen is great, but we also have amazing volunteers. And, you know, going back decades, we have members with really deep talent, like, like Scott, I mentioned, and Dennis, who can bring in top quality trees. And then we have a lot of really key volunteers who come in year after year to support the club and do outreach events. But even beyond that, Portland in general is, I think, the best place in the country to do bonsai. The weather and whatnot. If you think about California, you guys don't have real seasons totally. But you come up to Oregon and you have very distinct seasons. We have a very distinct fall, winter, spring and summer. And it's almost like Japan in a sense. So anything you can grow in Japan, you can grow in Portland. You don't have to do any of this crazy winter sheltering. Right. And so it's like, ideal for bonsai culture. So if you're new to bonsai, you can pick it up really easily in Portland and come back year after year. And so the club grows. Right. And so now we have a museum. We have the Bonsai Museum, we have the Japanese Garden, a bunch of really amazing private collections like Ryan's and Michaels. So it's really. Oh, yeah. And by the way, I live right in the middle. Like, if you draw a triangle between Ryan, Dennis, Andrew and Michael Hagedorn, I'm like, right in the middle of that. So I'm like. I lucked out in terms of, you know, coming up in the city to, like, do pottery. Right? So. [01:11:53] Speaker C: So that's rad. Sweet. What is. What does the structure of the club look like in terms of like, leadership and then also just programs and meetings. What does that look like? I'm just curious. I. I would love to attend a meeting someday. [01:12:11] Speaker A: Yeah, well, when you have to come. And when you do come, we'll time it so that there's a meeting. But yeah, there's, you know, like any club, there's a. There's a officers board where they have presidents and vice presidents and events. Presidents. And we always. Our monthly event, we always have a guest speaker and we always have a formal display set up, and we always have area for buying and selling trees, which is more important than it seems because if you're new to bonsai, you want to be able to get your hands on something decent. And if you're. If you've been doing bonsai a long time, you need somewhere to dump stuff, like I do, so. [01:13:00] Speaker C: Totally. [01:13:00] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:13:01] Speaker A: Really, really well. Best club ever. I think it's really good. Really well. Yeah, really well. [01:13:06] Speaker B: Ran. [01:13:08] Speaker C: Yeah, I'm. I'm jealous and would love to attend a meeting just to see what it's like. I'm. I wish we could replicate that in other parts of the country. I just don't know if it's doable, especially because of. I feel like a big part of it is just all the talent that you have going on in Portland. But, like, everything I hear about the club sounds so cool, and I'm even, like, on the Facebook groups and watch all the Facebook posts about the club, and I've seen a few YouTube videos online and it just seems like a really cool spot and just an awesome community that you guys have created. So props on that. [01:13:50] Speaker A: Thank you. I have no part in it whatsoever. I wish I had time to help the club out. [01:13:58] Speaker C: Totally, totally. Well, now I want to be super respectful of your time, and I know you're doing 10 things at once right now, which is probably why your ability to multitask is probably why you're so successful and can do so many different things. If you still have time, would love to chat more about the pbe, but if you need to get back to the. To your kiln, please let me know. [01:14:29] Speaker A: No, it's. It's good. We can go keep going if you like. [01:14:33] Speaker C: Okay. Do you want to take a break or are you good? [01:14:37] Speaker A: Yeah, give me two minutes to check the kiln and I'll be right back. Hey, I'm back. Sorry about that. [01:14:42] Speaker C: No worries at all. [01:14:43] Speaker A: No worries for like another 15, 20 minutes, I think. [01:14:47] Speaker C: Okay, cool. Sounds great. Well, you know, I was thinking if it's good with you, maybe we could talk a little bit about your breakdown on the data from the Pacific Bonsai Expo. [01:15:00] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. [01:15:03] Speaker C: Awesome. Yeah. So basically you posted a thread on the bonsai Nut forum. I'm trying to find it right now, but basically. [01:15:13] Speaker A: Hold on. [01:15:15] Speaker C: Yeah, let's take a sec for that. What was it titled again? [01:15:21] Speaker A: Analyzing PBE Judging Data. It always makes me laugh that though there are like pros and semi pros using Bonsai Note, I don't know if there's a more formal way for us to talk to each other other than Bonsai Note. [01:15:37] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. Well, basically you just broke down some of the data from the scoring and I found some of the points that you found very interesting. So I don't know, I was hoping that maybe you could just go through a few of the points for anyone listening and we could just chat through some of that if that's cool. [01:15:59] Speaker A: Okay, sure. Yeah. I mean, it's not that I didn't analyze in any great statistical way. I think all I really did was plot the numbers, which is publicly available, and did stupid statistics like averages. Right. So I didn't do anything fancy here. But just looking at which trees scored higher and which ones did not was kind of interesting and seeing people's reactions to certain trees and what we can kind of glean from that is cool. I don't know. What do you, where do you want to start? So like, like it was, there's very clear like good trees and bad trees. Right. And you know, we, we, we, we talked a lot about why a certain display was bad. For example. Oh, so one of the, one of the standout ones was all the deciduous trees that had leaves didn't score as high as deciduous trees that were shown without leaves. Right. I don't think that's surprising to anybody. When you have leaves, you can't see the structure of the branches and all the hard work you put into it. So naturally, if you show a tree with leaves and it's not like in good color, you're going to get some sort of deduction. In the case of the pbe, you actually got a one point deduction on average if you showed the tree with leaves. So put another way, you actually got 20% less points. Right. If you showed the tree with leaves, which is significant. [01:17:35] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I thought that was really interesting and I feel like just that point. One thing I was talking to Andrew about was I think that they're thinking about doing more of a winter show potentially and trying to make sure that all areas are, or all areas would be showing dormant deciduous trees. And I think that the data really supports that. And I also think just looking at all the trees with leaves now I'm seeing some pictures of them without leaves. Like, for example, the Pacific Bonsai Museum's Korean hornbeam. I just saw a picture of that without leaves, and I'm like, ah, that looks so much better. I know that cork bark elm in particular. Absolutely love that tree. It's out of a SoCal practitioner. I'm totally blanking on his name right now, which is horrible. But that treats Michael Roberts. Michael Roberts. Elm looks so much better without leaves to me. I just think that's a very stark contrast in the data there. [01:18:41] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm looking forward to a silhouette show. As someone who loves deciduous. I can't wait to show there one day. But it's also interesting to note that the general public don't get the whole no leaves aspect. When I talk to, like, regular normies who don't do bonsai, they're like, is that tree alive? Why would you show it without leaves? Things like that. So that'll be interesting. Interesting at the silhouette show, which is open to the general public to see their reaction. [01:19:12] Speaker C: Interesting. [01:19:16] Speaker A: Yeah. So just going back at the thread, there was a few displays that were contentious because they were trying to be kind of non traditional and maybe Western modern with their display. And so the scoring showed that people were really split on how to take that. Right. There are traditionalists who hated it and a non traditionalist who loved it. So you saw these really wonky distributions of score where nobody really knew what to take of it or what to make of it. Right. So that was interesting as like, a litmus on the crowd itself. Like, where is American bonsai today? Are we traditionalists or are we not? And there's no answer. [01:20:04] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. That makes total sense. I think we are quite split there, and it's fun to see the data support that. [01:20:12] Speaker A: Yeah. And even a really, really good formal, traditional displays, some of the judges did not like them. Right. Even though they're, like, textbook perfect displays. You know, I'm seeing threes and twos on some of these top trees, which to me means either they don't know the basics of display, they don't know what a good tree looks like, or they just don't like the fact that it's not innovative. It's very cookie cutter, in a sense. [01:20:40] Speaker C: Totally. I thought it was interesting. One point that you made was that the XL conifers did much better than smaller conifers. Just in terms of judging. Like, there was more fours and fives for XL conifers, but then for deciduous size, it didn't matter as much. I thought that was just a very interesting to me it would make sense that just larger trees in general I would think would score higher than smaller trees just because they have more of a presence factor. But was interesting to see that the conifers had a higher, higher points than deciduous. [01:21:21] Speaker A: We should state that the sample size is small. It's only what, 75 trees or something. [01:21:26] Speaker C: For sure. [01:21:28] Speaker A: If I were to add in the first PBE's data, that would be interesting to recut it with that. I haven't done that yet. But back on the conifer piece, if it's an XL conifer, it's probably a Yamadori. And if it's probably a big ass Yamadori, it's probably really impressive and probably going to score well. So there's a lot of things like that I can break it out by. Was it Yamadori or was it not? For example, and are all those high hitting excels, are they Yamadori? And they probably are. Right. Like the Pandis and the. Or even your redwood was technically a Yama Jori. Right. But heavily styled. But, but for deciduous we're not seeing that size difference. Right. We're seeing, we're seeing crappy big trees is what we're seeing. And that could go back to the leaf thing. So I could pull, I could throw out the leaf data and see if that still holds. But I think it's easy to grow a big crappy deciduous tree. Yeah, right. I mean if I wanted to, I could grow a trident that's four foot tall in two years and it's going to look like crap and I can do a really crappy bonsai in 10 years. But you can't really, you can't make a good black pine in 10 years. Right? @ that size. Yeah. So I think that's the difference. If you want to make a quality deciduous at that size, it needs to take 30 years is what it might say. [01:23:07] Speaker C: That makes total sense. Also, I guess a lot of the high quality deciduous, or maybe not a lot, I can't remember exactly, but at least some of them were imported trees from Japan specifically. I'm sure those trees scored pretty well and I think in general there's not as many massive imported trees as there are smaller ones. [01:23:32] Speaker A: Yeah, I would think. I haven't. I can break out the data by whether or not it was imported would be interested. Interesting. But if they took the trouble to import it, it was probably a large or at least impressive tree. Right? [01:23:46] Speaker C: For sure. For sure. [01:23:49] Speaker A: So I also broke it out by trees that are native to North America versus trees that are not native to North America. And what I thought was interesting that was that native trees did a lot of low scoring. So native trees got a lot of ones and twos versus non native trees. They got far less ones in twos. So I think what it means is there's a lot of native trees that are submitted and not show quality. Either the tree is wonky because it's a native tree and it can't be styled right, or it was rushed to show a native tree is what it shows. [01:24:35] Speaker C: The data makes sense. [01:24:38] Speaker A: And we saw that. Right. There were some, like, some native pine displays that were not quite there yet. Right. We saw pondies that were, like, very clearly collected within the last five years and don't have great pad formation, you know, versus, like, the black pines that Jonas have are, like, very refined. But of course there's a difference there. You can't make great pads on a pondy like you can if a black pines. [01:25:07] Speaker C: Totally, Totally. Very cool. Well, any other points that you wanted to highlight there? I just. I just thought that was kind of fun and interesting, and I like that you. That you analyzed the data and put some points there. I thought it was cool. So thank you so much for that. [01:25:27] Speaker A: Thank you. I. The data is public for everyone to play with, and that's why it's there. I think more people should analyze and look at the data. It's really interesting to see what people think. Yeah. If you're serious about display, then you should start thinking about how people perceive your display before you put it together. What things work and what doesn't work. Right. [01:25:53] Speaker C: I think it will be really cool as hopefully the PBE continues and we'll have more and more data. I think it'll be fun to break it down from year to year and then just have the overall data to look at and play around with. I think that will be really cool. I also think it'd be awesome if. Well, it will be awesome when we have all these different images that we can look at, both from the PBE and the national show. I think it'd be really fun to break down, like, okay, what are the top 10 best Ponderosa Pine that have ever been displayed? Or what are the top 10, you know, Sierra juniper or whatever. I'm just excited to. To see that and see how many. How many? Now tokatake pots will. Will have been presented at the PBE and national show over many, many years. I think that will be really fun. [01:26:48] Speaker A: Yeah, we're very young compared to. Are you going to go to the 100 kokofu. I mean, they've done 100 shows for, gosh, six. That's crazy. [01:26:56] Speaker C: Yeah. I don't know, man. I would love to. I would absolutely love to. It's. I just. I'm just not sure. Are you gonna go do it? [01:27:06] Speaker A: Yeah, I think I. You kind of have to, right? Ah, well, like, I'm going to the GAFU 10, which is in two weeks, because you have to the 50, you know, and so it's just gonna be a party, I guess. [01:27:19] Speaker C: That is so cool. I'm really excited for you. I hope you take lots of pictures and. And share your stories. [01:27:28] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It'll be very interesting to see how the American bonsai scene changes in when we have the 50th PBE. Well, I guess I won't be alive then, but. [01:27:41] Speaker C: Oh, man, that would be. That would be awesome if we could get to 50. [01:27:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Just one more note on the data. I just love that it's public and transparent because we have too many shows in the US where the judging is suspect. Right. And there's a lot of argument about favoritism and why exactly did that tree win and not that one? And just having the data is just excellent for everyone's sanity. [01:28:09] Speaker C: 100% completely agree with you, I guess. Last question. I'm just totally curious and I'm throwing a whole bunch of different random questions out your way, but what. What type of judging do you like for the PvE? Do you like the kind of membership people that are displaying the trees judging, or would you prefer professional judges? And what would. What would you envision that would look like if it was all up to you? [01:28:37] Speaker A: Well, when we say professionals in the U.S. there's not that many. Right. I think the Kokofu uses professionals probably because they have a bunch of them and they can be impartial if they're not showing a tree in the thing. But in the US I don't think we have that luxury. We can't have a talent pool of 50 professional bonsai artists judging, so that's probably why we're using the displayers themselves versus pros. I don't think there's anything wrong if they have prose in addition to the displaying artists. But I think it's great that the displayers are judging because then it improves their display abilities. Right. It forces you to think about those display aspects that you don't usually think about if you're just looking at it and walking by. Right. But when you're judging it yourself, you have to actually consider the stand and all that jazz. [01:29:40] Speaker C: Totally. [01:29:41] Speaker A: Yeah. So I love the system, and I think it's correct for where America is at right now. Maybe in 50 years, when we have a lot of pros, we can switch to the Kokofu style or something. [01:29:55] Speaker C: Solid. Love it. Awesome, man. Well, hey, now. Thank you so much for your time. I really, really appreciate it. I'm such a huge fan of your work. Love your pots. I hope I can get get more of them from you in the future. A whole lot more. And just really big fan of everything that you're doing. Just in talking with you, I can tell why you are so successful in the pottery world. And, yeah, it really shows. You're just doing an awesome job. I just want to applaud everything that you're doing. Thank you so much for the time. I know you've got a lot of things going on right now with career, family, and ceramics, so I really appreciate you taking the time to chat with me today. [01:30:42] Speaker A: Thank you. Right back at you. Yeah, I know you're pretty busy and successful also, so I hope to work with you again on some future display. See you at the next PvE. [01:30:55] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:30:56] Speaker A: See you in Portland. Come to Portland. Come to Portland. [01:30:59] Speaker C: I definitely will. Thanks so much now. Really appreciate it, man. Talk to you soon. [01:31:04] Speaker A: All right, take care. Bye.