Takahiro Mori

 I have had a full bonsai-weekend! The Swedish Bonsai Association has had its annual meeting and this year it was our turn in Umeå to arrange the meeting. It has been a full schedule from Friday to Sunday, putting up the exhibition, following the workshop and demonstration.

With some help from the EU-Japan Fest Committee we had got Takahiro Mori to demonstrate for us.

 Here are pictures from the demonstration. The demonstration tree was a spruce, collected from the forest by one of our members. It is growing downwards like this. Mr Mori turned it around to look at it from different angles. He could not decide which side should be the front of the tree.

Then he started work without telling us which front he had chosen. He asked for help with the initial cleaning of the tree, taking away unnecessary shoots and dead parts so the branches would become visible.

 

There is a pointy dead part sticking out from the trunk. You can see the difference between the picture above, =before, and the picture below, =after carving.

Started wiring.

Started shaping.

The foliage is divided into layers.

 

The finished result!

And which side did he choose for the front?

The answer is he made the tree with two fronts - picture above and below.