Palo Alto, California
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Kusamura Bonsai Club Palo Alto, California |
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Kusamura Bonsai Club specializes in teaching how to create and improve your bonsai. If you're interested in bonsai please be our guest at three monthly club meetings to observe our activities. If you decide you'd like to become a member, you may do so at any meeting. Annual dues are $35 for individuals and $45 for couples. Meetings are held on the third Friday of each month at St Mark’s Episcopal Church, 600 Colorado Ave., Palo Alto, in the Parish Hall, Palo Alto. Directions to our meetings can be found at this link. The Advantages of Membership Monthly meetings consisting of:
Other Benefits A library of books, magazines, and tapes that members are encouraged to borrow. Group tours are arranged to nearby specialized nurseries and to suppliers of pots, tools, wire, and Bonsai stock trees. Semi-private workshops that members are able to participate in with well-known visiting experts . Information is available on the annual state-wide Bonsai convention and the related workshops available. The featured guest artists for the last few years have been various highly regarded Bonsai experts from Japan. Annual Bonsai show with displays and demonstrations at which you have the opportunity to show your trees.
History of the Kusamura
Bonsai Club Kusamura Bonsai Club arose out of an initial
organization named “Hokubei Kusamura Mujin-ko” with its earliest recorded formal meeting
in 1956. It became known as the Northern California Kusamura Mutual
Association a few years later.
It began meeting in member’s homes and was led by Keiseki
Hirotsu who only spoke Japanese.
The first constitution and by-laws of Kusamura Bonsai
Club were approved by the membership on June 12, 1960 with Toshio
Saburomaru serving as President for the fractional year of 1960. Prior
to 1960, activities associated with bonsai were carried out by several
past members; as it was an informal organization until greater
interest in the art of bonsai was brought to the United States by Yuji
Yoshimura. It is noted that Toshio Saburomaru was a member of the
original group of about 12 people working on bonsai around 1954 being
taught by Yuji Yoshimura. Some of those early members helped to found
Kusamura Bonsai Club.
In the first 10 years, the club had many
extraordinary people who took the leadership: Toshio Saburomaru, Peter
Sugawara, Robert DiVita, Seiji Yanari, Ken Nakashima, Thomas Refvem,
Robert Hillbun, John Planting, and Mrs. Francis (Clara) Howard. In
1960, the first class taught by Yoshimura, assisted by Tosh Saburomaru,
contained 35 people. The original club logo,
a three-trunk Japanese White Pine raft, was taken from a pamphlet
showing photos of the trees in a Crown Prince’s (Akihito) Exhibit in
Japan sometime in the 1950s. The club’s first bonsai show was
held at the Palo Alto Buddhist Temple on October, 7, 1961. In 1961, a few San Jose
members left to form Midori Bonsai while the Japanese-speaking members
formed Akebono Bonsai Club at the Palo Alto Buddhist Temple during the
1962-63 season. In 1964, Yuji Yoshimura presented his last
lecture to Kusamura members at Saint Mark’s Episcopal Church in Palo
Alto with the sponsorship of The American Bonsai Association, created
in 1958, and the Sacramento Bonsai Club.
In 1965, the Kusamura Bonsai Club show at Stanford
University featured over “over 100 examples of Japanese dwarfed trees
(bonsai).” Names such as Planting, Refvem, Ransohoff, and Poggensee,
are now 50 years later considered household names to club members.
The club had begun conducting tree gathering trips to the Pygmy
Forest near Ft. Bragg, Toiyabe National Forest, Mohave, and the Red
Lake Lodge near the Grand Canyon.
Shows and special exhibitions were frequently being held at
events like the Japanese Doll Exhibit, San Francisco Hall of Flowers,
Art & Bonsai Exhibit at Foothill College, and the Marin Art & Garden
show.
In 1962,
Jim Ransohoff and Connie and Horace Hinds helped create the Bonsai Club
Association (now known as Bonsai Clubs International or BCI) and began
creating conventions and shows in the Bay Area.
By 1963, Marin, East Bay, San Francisco, Kusamura, Midori, Tri
County, and American Bonsai Club had been formed. Interest in Bonsai
increased in the United States. Tosh
Saburomaru,
Yuji Yoshimura and others began touring. In the late 1960s and early
‘70s, John Naka, Fay Kramer (student of Yuji Yoshimura/Zeko Nakamura),
Kyuzo Murata, Morihiko Tomita, Masao Komatsu, and Kawasumi Masakuni
began doing workshops for Kusamura. In the mid ‘70s, a popular
demonstration was by Carl Young, of Seiju-en Nursery located in Lodi,
on the use of Chrysanthemums as bonsai. The 1980s saw presenters such
as William Valavanis (International Bonsai), Naka, Hiroshi Suzuki, Dan
Robinson, Mike Page, Katsumi Kinoshita, and Melba Tucker (First Lady of
Bonsai).
In the 1990s, visitors and shows continued with
speakers like Bill Sullivan, Denis Makishima, Yasuo Mitsuya, Kathy
Shaner, and Tatemori Gondo. Shows and events were held at Filoli
Gardens and Estate, Horticultural Show in Palo Alto, Mountain View
Buddhist Temple and others.
In
1992, Kusamura Bonsai Club officially filled for 501 (c )(3) status
with the IRS under President Bill Scott. In the early ’90s, many
members of Kusamura participated in the creation of the GSBF-Collection
North, now named, GSBF Bonsai Garden at Lake Merritt, in Oakland, CA.
Among these was landscape architect Jim Ransohoff, who drew up the
design of the garden. Perspective members and interested parties may find
out more information concerning Kusamura Bonsai club on the web at:
http://www.gsbf-bonsai.org/kusamura/ and contact the club via email
at: Kusamura-info@gsbf-bonsai.org Sign up for the next newsletter today by sending email to jcsf1090@earthlink.net or to kusamura@gsbf-bonsai.org
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About Our
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