One week before the exhibition, Moss Application is applied to a Japanese Red Pine in Literati Style. Pressing gently with the pad of the finger, settling the surface into a natural, unhurried bearing — a quiet time of handwork. 'The outcome is decided in the preparation' — Sensei's accumulated effort, ahead of Taikan-ten at Miyako Messe, lives right here.
Taikan-ten is held at the Kyoto Miyako Messe. For Koji Hiramatsu, this is the place where, each year, he puts his carefully cultivated work before the world.
Yet the true beginning of an exhibition is not the venue itself. From Moss Application a week before, through a late-night transport, to the setup the following morning — the real contest lives entirely within that journey.
This year's centrepiece is a Japanese Red Pine in Literati Style, housed in a Shiro-Kochi pot — a piece shaped over the course of several years.
'It is something altogether different from a tree that overwhelms you with presence' — that is what the Literati Style is. People of old, it is said, would look at such a tree and murmur, 'Now there is a tree you could drink tea beside.' Sensei himself says he has not yet reached that place, and yet this tree holds something that asks to be savoured. It stands quietly, and draws you to linger near it — the Literati Style carries a beauty of that particular order.
Do not over-refine the branches. Leave the flowers a little loose, preserving the tree's natural bearing. The movement of natural Shari and Jin is something no human hand can make — and so the judgement to hold back becomes the very core of the aesthetic. Where does care end and 'too much' begin? Perhaps learning that boundary is itself something that only grows over a long, long time.
One week before the exhibition. Koji Hiramatsu takes up the moss. Not the day before, not the morning of — it must be one week prior. The time for the moss to settle after being applied is what determines the beauty of the finished surface.
Pressing gently with the pad of the finger, he spreads it across the surface of the pot. Not piled up in mounded clumps, but laid naturally, as though rooting itself into the earth. The seams are pressed in with the finger pad, worked until no joint remains visible. This quiet, unhurried handwork is what will, in time, determine how a single tree stands in the exhibition hall.
'The outcome is decided in the preparation. If something does not sell, it simply means my own eye was not sharp enough' — loading around fifty trees into the car, driving through the night, then assembling the shelves at Miyako Messe the next morning. Sensei's resolve, by this point, is already unshakeable.
Before the radiant scene of the exhibition, there is this transport. There is a week of Moss Application. There are years of cultivation. By the time exhibition day arrives, it is already too late to attempt anything new. Every answer already exists within the hours that have been quietly accumulated.
An exhibition is also the place where one puts carefully cultivated work before the world. What is tested is not the conduct of that day, but the accumulation of everything leading up to it — and that is where a craftsman's pride resides.
'Bonsai does not end until you die' — there is no conclusion to this journey.
Next year, the moss will be applied again. The night road will be driven again. Miyako Messe will be the destination once more. It may appear to be the same repetition, and yet the trees differ, the seasons differ, and one's own eye shifts, little by little. This is not work aimed at completion — it is work that takes pleasure in a journey without completion. That, perhaps, is the true nature of bonsai.
The Adept: “Uma” journey begins with registration.
Begin the Journey
