Museum Curators: Jack Sustic

Jack Sustic at NBF’s annual reception in 2018.

“It’s almost as if my life path was leading, from the very beginning, to become curator.”

— Jack Sustic

Sustic has just retired from his two-year stint as National Bonsai Foundation co-president and 19 years as a board member, leaving an extensive and inspiring legacy at the Museum – including 12 cumulative years as Museum curator. Therefore, it’s only fitting we pay homage to him in our next Museum Curators spotlight. 

His “path” to bonsai curator began indirectly during his youth. Sustic had heard references to bonsai in films like Karate Kid, but he first saw a real bonsai in the mid-1980s when he was serving in Korea as a U.S. Army soldier before college. He said the bonsai immediately captivated him, and upon returning to the U.S. at Fort McClellan, Alabama, Sustic joined the Alabama Bonsai Society.

The club jumpstarted his love for bonsai and plants in general, and Sustic soon graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in horticulture. He scored his first plant care job at the Riverbanks Zoo and Botanical Garden in South Carolina, during which he applied for the U.S. National Arboretum’s internship at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum.

In 1996, Sustic served as the Museum intern for six months under Curators Bob Drechsler and Warren Hill. He returned to South Carolina after his internship wrapped up but was soon chosen for the Assistant Curator position, taking over as curator after Hill retired. Sustic served as curator from 2001 to 2005 and returned in 2008 to preside over the Museum for another eight years. 

“It was such an honor to be part of that collection, but with that honor comes responsibility,” Sustic said. 

Sustic and volunteer Dr. Joe Gutierrez repotting the Yamaki pine.

Accomplishments as Curator and Co-President

Sustic helped to establish many perennial programs and relationships at the Museum and NBF. He pioneered the formation of NBF’s National Bonsai Hall of Fame, which currently includes three members: John Naka, Yuji Yoshimura and Bill Valavanis.

“It was something I thought the Museum and the U.S. bonsai community needed in order to honor and recognize these bonsai masters’ valuable contributions to the art,” he said. 

Sustic is credited with planting the seeds to grow the Museum’s Sister Museum relationship with the Omiya Bonsai Art Museum after he visited their site in Saitama, Japan. Sustic also formed the Consortium of Public Bonsai Curators as a way for bonsai artists and leaders to share information about how they share, cultivate and protect their bonsai collections. 

“The consortium serves to help each other and each public collection. I’m very proud of that,” he said. 

From left to right: Former Curators Jim Hughes, Bob Drechsler, Jack Sustic and current Curator Michael James.

Sustic’s Bonsai Inspirations

Sustic met an array of friends and teachers throughout his nearly 20 years at the Museum. 

“Being curator has allowed me to get to know, work with and befriend people around the world who have been part of the Museum,” Sustic said. “The kindness that all these people share is wonderful.”

Among that company is Felix Laughlin, appointed as NBF’s third president as Sustic began his internship in 1996. Sustic eventually joined Laughlin as co-president from 2018 to 2020. 

“I was really lucky to have one NBF president the entire time I was at the Museum and really lucky it was Felix,” Sustic said. “He is such a wonderful guy, and we worked really well together.”

Sustic learned the art of bonsai from many people, but he most prominently drew inspiration and learned from bonsai master John Naka, who visited the Museum every year to work on trees, especially his world-renowned “Goshin.” Sustic also visited Naka in California to work on trees in Naka’s backyard. 

“Looking back now, I wish I had paid more attention,” he said. “It went by too fast, but those were wonderful experiences. I learned a lot from John, so his influence was huge on me.”

Sustic also learned from Harry Hirao and traveled to Saburo Kato’s bonsai nursery in Japan called Mansei En, during which he received one-on-one training from Kato. With their help, he excelled as a leader and friend throughout his years of dedication to the Museum. 

“I distinctly remember telling Bob Drechsler, ‘I don’t know how you can be curator. I could never do it,’” Sustic said. “Fortunately, over time I learned the ropes, and eventually I took it over. I considered it a real honor and privilege to have been the steward of those trees, and I still feel that way.”

Sustic adds the final touches on a trident maple prior to an official state visit by the Japanese Prime Minister in 2012.

Photographing Bonsai With Stephen Voss: A Visit to the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum During Quarantine

On May 13, the sun was shining on a beautiful spring day in Washington, D.C. As I drove through Rock Creek Park, trees formed a vibrant cathedral of green over the road, which was nearly empty of cars as Washingtonians remained home to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. 

I’d been given the unusual privilege of going to the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum in the midst of the District-wide shutdown to take photographs for the National Bonsai Foundation’s 2019 Annual Report.

On the premises of the U.S. National Arboretum, the Museum has always been a quiet and peaceful place, ideal for reflection and for connecting with nature. Usually the parking lot is fairly full, and both visitors and staff can be seen walking the grounds.

But May 13 was different. Only essential staff were allowed on site, and work days were staggered to encourage social distancing. Walking toward the Museum, with the Capitol Columns in the distance, I didn’t see a single person. The grounds felt emptied out, reclaimed by the quiet.

At the Museum, staff had been doing the vital work of keeping the trees healthy. The lack of visitors meant more ambitious projects could be undertaken, like repotting the famous Yamaki pine and letting the foliage of other trees grow out because they wouldn’t be on display.

Walking through the Museum alone, I felt both enormous gratitude and a sense of sadness, that others could not currently experience this living monument to bonsai.

But in these trying times, under the watchful eye of Museum staff, the trees have thrived. Their tenacity is a sign of hope, a reminder that the trees have persevered through other trying times. Outside these walls, the world shifts, our country convulses – but the trees endure. 

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As a photographer who now makes a living snapping pictures of some of the world’s most influential figures, Stephen Voss didn’t always know that photography could be more than a hobby.  Once a bonsai novice, he certainly didn’t think he would publish a photography book of bonsai.

Now that he’s an accomplished photographer, Voss wants to share his “tricks of the bonsai photography trade.” This entry is part of his regular guest blog series, “Photographing Bonsai with Stephen Voss", published on NBF’s blog, covering everything from lighting, angles and mindset needed when photographing the trees. This has been a special entry in this series given the times.

Sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Facebook and Instagram to never miss one of his entries! Read his last entry here.

Museum Curators: Jim Hughes

Jim Hughes working on a Japanese white pine at the Shanghai Botanical Garden.

For some people, horticulture is in their DNA. This is the case for Jim Hughes, our newly elected National Bonsai Foundation Board Chair and fourth curator, who hails from a lineage of Minnesota farmers. 

In this installation of “Museum Curators,” we chronicle Hughes’ dedication to nature and eventually bonsai, which started with childhood visits to his family farm. 

“I remember getting the dry kernels of corn off of the corn cobs, putting them in clear mason jars filled with dirt and watching the roots grow,” he said. “The whole process of plants taking off and growing, the day-by-day changes really fascinated me, so my whole life I've been interested in growing things.”

But Hughes’ first taste of bonsai didn’t come until about 30 years later – the late 1980s – when he joined the Minnesota Bonsai Society. He took his first training class from Randy Clark, who ran The Bonsai Learning Center. 

Hughes befriended influential members of the bonsai world – like world-class potter Sarah Rayner Alms – and learned from teachers and visiting speakers who attended the monthly bonsai club meetings. 

Four of five Museum Curators, from left to right: Jim Hughes, Robert Drechsler, Michael James and Jack Sustic.

In 1995, he moved to the D.C. area with seven years of bonsai experience, ready to learn more at the U.S. National Arboretum. He quickly became a Museum volunteer under our first curator Robert Drechsler, working with the other Museum’s curators in the ensuing years. 

“It was a really special opportunity to learn from so many different people, all of whom brought their own talents to the art form,” Hughes said. “That exposure greatly benefited me.”

He loves how bonsai is a unique art form that provides a focused and extremely rewarding career that can stretch across decades. 

“Every year you’re dealing with that element of time and age, which makes bonsai so exciting for me,” he said. “You know that five or nine years from now the tree is going to have a different personality because of that age. It’s a really interesting process, and it takes a certain kind of mentality to really be drawn to the complexity of bonsai.”

Hughes with Aaron Packard – an assistant curator Hughes hired to train at the Museum – and Museum Specialist Kathleen Emerson-Dell working on a bonsai they brought to the White House’s Blue Room in 2006 for a visit from the Japanese Prime Minister.

Leading the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum 

Hughes worked as a Museum volunteer for seven years, an assistant curator for three years and presided over the collection as curator for an additional three years, from 2005 to 2008 – gaining enough memories and friendships for a lifetime.

One highlight was his five-week trip studying penjing at the Shanghai Botanical Garden in China – the country he deems “the source of bonsai.” He studied with masters every day and took trips to other historical Chinese sites on the weekends. Hughes also had the pleasure of frequently learning from bonsai master John Naka, who visited D.C. for NBF board meetings. 

One of Hughes’ most thrilling memories was working to repot the imperial pine, an extensive process because of the tree’s immense size and weight. 

“It was incredible to lift the pine up on a hoist, remove it from that huge container, lay under the root ball and break away the dirt to see the roots that have formed over hundreds of years,” he said. “Not many people get to do it, so I was really fortunate.”

Hughes added that he loved the people he met at the Museum, both while volunteering or presiding as curator. He worked extensively with former NBF Executive Director Johann Klodzen (who retired after 19 years in January) on a capital campaign to renovate the Japanese Pavilion.

“That gave me an opportunity to visit and really have a personal conversation with our major donors, which was an educational experience for me and a way to see how important the museum is to so many people,” Hughes said. 

Hughes repotting the Ponderosa pine, one of many repottings he was able to take part in.

Taking the helm of NBF

Hughes maintained that his visions for the Museum as the new NBF chair are heavily predicated on partnerships and increasing engagement with donors and guests.

He aims to broaden support for the Museum within local, regional and national communities and international partners. Hughes is looking forward to collaborating with U.S. National Arboretum staff, supporting the goals of Arboretum Director Dr. Richard Olsen and working closely with Friends of the National Arboretum to raise money for the arboretum grounds. 

He and the NBF Board are investigating fundraising efforts for upcoming Museum projects, like improvements to the pavilions and structures that house collections and exhibits. 

“I’m really excited about the designs that Reed Hilderbrand and Trahan Architects have presented for improvements to the Museum,” Hughes said. “They are just stunning, and I can’t wait to share them with the public.”

Assistant Curator Blog: “Inside the Museum During COVID-19”

Japanese white pine donated by Masaru Yamaki, in training since 1625. This photo was taken on August 6, 2020 to commemorate its survival of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima, Japan 75 years ago. Photos courtesy of U.S. National Arboretum.

In early spring, as COVID-19 cases increased, many businesses and public places implemented restrictions or completely shuttered their doors. As many of you know, this was the fate of the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum. We had to close to ensure the safety of our visitors, volunteers, and staff. It has been about six months since the closure, but within the walls of the Museum we have been hard at work building the strength of the trees and continuing to bring the intended designs forward.  

One positive aspect of closing to the public is that the trees had an opportunity to grow out of their constantly maintained forms and build more strength and vigor. By letting new growth elongate and allowing the leaves mature, the trees were able to photosynthesize to a greater extent and recover the energy they used to push growth in spring. What might look like a slightly overgrown small shrub in a beautiful container is just a bonsai gaining energy and being pampered until it is once again brought back into shape for the viewer to gaze upon and enjoy.

Bonsai in the Japanese Collection soaking up the summer sun after a morning watering.

Bonsai in the Japanese Collection soaking up the summer sun after a morning watering.

As spring slowly passed and we began to settle into summer here in D.C., we experienced an intense heat wave. At this point in the year most of the trees have been repotted and their spring growth has been pruned. As the heat increases, the focus turns to attentive watering. Watering, as many people who practice bonsai know, is the first thing you learn and the last thing you master. Local weather conditions can vary greatly, especially in the temperate areas of the continental United States. With this weather variability, we must also change how we water. We can’t let trees get too dry or keep them too wet, causing rot and encouraging the onset of diseases or pests. Watering is a delicate process that gives me the greatest personal connection with each tree. 

Closing the Museum to the public has also meant it is closed to our wonderful team of volunteers. Although we have been able to keep up with most of the work with our small staff, the skills, knowledge, and friendship that the volunteers provide to the Museum have been greatly missed.

As we approach summer’s end, we are looking forward to when we can once again open the gates of the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum and welcome our visitors and supporters to a safe space to enjoy the beauty, peace, and joy that bonsai provides to us all. 

Sincerely,

Andy Bello
Assistant Curator
National Bonsai & Penjing Museum
U.S. National Arboretum

NBF Welcomes Jim Hughes as Incoming Chair

Jim Hughes

The National Bonsai Foundation is pleased to announce Jim Hughes as our new Chair of the Board. 

Hughes oversaw the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum as curator from 2005 to 2008. He has served as an NBF board member since 2009 – briefly holding the treasurer position – and is a member of many other bonsai groups, including the Minnesota Bonsai Society, Brookside Bonsai Society and the Potomac Bonsai Association.

He has contributed greatly to the Museum in the past, leading the fundraising efforts for the renovation of the Japanese Pavilion, taking care of our prized collections, holding bonsai demonstrations and writing articles for our former communication outlet: the NBF Bulletin. Hughes has also represented NBF on the Friends of the National Arboretum (FONA) board for three years.

Hughes was born in Minnesota and graduated from St. John’s University in Collegeville, Minnesota with an undergraduate degree in English and a minor in education. He taught for 10 years at various high schools in the Minneapolis suburbs before returning to school to study computer programming.

Hughes first came to Washington, D.C. in 1996 and soon became a volunteer at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum. In 2002, he was chosen for the assistant curator position working under Jack Sustic, leading him to assume the curator position three years later.

 Hughes was a key member of the planning committee for the symposium on The Art of Chinese Penjing sponsored by the U.S. National Arboretum and NBF. He studied rock and tree penjing and the origins of bonsai at the Shanghai Botanical Garden.

NBF welcomes Hughes as the new head of the Foundation and looks forward to many years of collaboration and support for the Museum with the U.S. National Arboretum and the collections of beautiful bonsai and penjing.

WE INVITE YOU TO COMMENT BELOW TO WELCOME JIM!

NBF Co-Presidents to Step Down After Two Years of Joint Leadership

As of August 20, Jack Sustic and Felix Laughlin will be leaving their roles as co-presidents of the National Bonsai Foundation.

Jack Sustic

Felix Laughlin

Laughlin has been an inspiring and dedicated member of the bonsai community. He was one of six founders who formed NBF in 1982 and became president in 1996, with Sustic joining as co-president in 2018.

Since NBF’s founding, the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum at the U.S. National Arboretum has become a world-renowned center for the art of bonsai, penjing and related art forms. During that period, the Museum has expanded from a single pavilion displaying the 53 bonsai given in 1976 to the American people by Japan as Bicentennial Gift to include multiple pavilions, exhibition buildings and courtyards presenting North American bonsai, Chinese penjing, tropical bonsai, and viewing stones.

Sustic began his bonsai career as a Museum intern in 1996. He then served as curator twice – from 2001 to 2005 and 2008 to 2016 – and has served on the NBF Board of Directors for 19 years. Sustic has spent many long hours caring for some of the most prized parts of our collections, including the Yamaki pine. 

 As co-presidents, Sustic and Laughlin have led many projects and improvements to both the Museum and NBF operations. Under their supervision, the Museum was voted “Best Place To Take An Out-Of-Towner” and “Best Museum Off The National Mall” in multiple Washington City Paper Best of D.C. polls.

 The pair have both demonstrated their personal commitment to the spread of bonsai appreciation through their various leadership positions in national and global organizations, like the World Bonsai Friendship Federation and WBFF’s North American regional representative organization, the North American Bonsai Federation.

Laughlin served as chairman of the World Bonsai Friendship Federation from 2001 to 2005, and organized the 5th World Bonsai Convention held in Washington, D.C. in 2005. Sustic served as the chairman of that successful World Bonsai Convention. Sustic is currently serving as the North American Bonsai Federation president and a WBFF director.

Sustic and Laughlin have been driving forces of peace and friendship who amplify the voices of bonsai novices and artists around the world and helped pave the way for bonsai care and appreciation for years to come. NBF is incredibly grateful for the co-presidents’ leadership and dedication to the Museum and the art of bonsai.

Through their combined work in the bonsai world, Sustic and Laughlin have instilled a lasting legacy of goodwill and love for bonsai. NBF wishes the two the best in their endeavors and thanks them for being an asset in the world of bonsai.

Learn more about NBF’s new leadership here.

WE INVITE YOU TO LEAVE A MESSAGE ABOUT FELIX AND/OR JACK BELOW!

Bonsai Around the World: The North Carolina Arboretum Bonsai Exhibition Garden

A view of the Bonsai Exhibition Garden in the North Carolina Arboretum. All photos courtesy of A. Joura/NC Arboretum.

For our next Bonsai Around the World blog, we’re back in the United States at the North Carolina Arboretum. We spoke with Curator Arthur Joura who has grown the arboretum’s “Americana-style” bonsai collection largely on his own over the past few decades despite having no prior bonsai experience.

In 1992, Joura was a utility worker at the arboretum – then a single empty building and no gardens – when he was assigned to take care of about 100 bonsai the arboretum had received as a donation from a woman in central North Carolina. Joura said the woman had been terminally ill and therefore was unable to take care of her trees. Many had already died or were not salvageable before the arboretum received her donation. 

“All of the bonsai were badly out of shape, and a lot of them had bugs and disease and so forth, so it was a real shambles to begin with,” he said.

Joura was originally resistant to take care of the trees, a task he didn’t think would be interesting. But he said he was “strongly encouraged” to take the job as a potential career opening. Joura previously bore no knowledge of bonsai or interest in the art, but he said his life changed after he took charge of the initial donation. 

“It was one of those things I could never have guessed at or arranged – it just happened, and I was in the right place at the right time,” he said.

Joura eventually studied at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum – where he formed a close friendship with former Arboretum Director Dr. John Creech – as part of an experience with the Nippon Bonsai Association and trained in New York State under Yuji Yoshimura. Joura said bonsai perfectly combined two main threads of his life: his educational background in fine arts and his personal interest in plants, horticulture and nature in general. 

“Bonsai is truly a visual art form, a way for me to be personally expressive through creativity, working with plants as a living medium,” he said. “To me, bonsai doesn’t need the props of foreign cultures to make it better. It’s good enough just as something people can do with plants that allows them the freedom of personal creative expression.” 

Arthur Joura, bonsai curator at the North Carolina Arboretum.

One temporary staff person waters the North Carolina Arboretum’s bonsai garden on the weekends and during the growing season, and three volunteers work mostly in the maintenance area, but Joura is the only one who works on bonsai styling. He pulls ideas from the trees he sees while he walks around his town or hikes in the mountains and woods near his home. 

“Sometimes I’m driving down the road, I stop and take my camera and say, ‘What is it that I like about that tree that makes me want to look at it so much?’” Joura said. “I try to break it down in my mind’s eye to understand how it got to be that way, and that’s what informs my work at the arboretum – the study of trees, both visually and biologically, how they function and what shapes them.”

The exhibition garden trees are saplings Joura has grown himself, bonsai that have been collected from nearby wilderness and some that people have donated after working on the trees for 30 years. The majority of the bonsai are less than 50 years old, but Joura said the design of the bonsai should be more important than their age or monetary value. 

“Our trees speak to people’s souls, their sense of poetry and appreciation of the living breathing world all around them,” he said. “That’s what we hang our hats on. I wish more people would see it this way.”

A display of eight bonsai at the Bonsai Exhibition Garden.

About 40 bonsai are on display at a time in the garden. Joura said Asheville, the city in which the arboretum is located, was not a bonsai hotspot, so he didn’t have any bonsai authority figures to develop the garden with. Instead, he led a group of about 10 people in the design and fundraising for the garden over the course of about seven years. Joura said the garden was built entirely on donated funds, which was the ultimate sign of support from their community. 

The garden is designed with the intent of creating a home for the plants on display with access to water and other amenities needed for horticulture but also to produce an environment that would transport guests to another place. 

“At first the plantings were all small and young but 15 years later, it’s really come into its own,” Joura said. “The whole garden is a meditation piece.” 

The exhibition garden includes a range of native trees and typical bonsai species, like Japanese white or black pines and gingko trees, but Joura said the collection represents strictly American bonsai. Joura maintains that the bonsai garden presents an experience incomparable to any other bonsai institutions that might contain bigger or older trees or bonsai trained or designed by famous bonsai artists.

“Our purpose is to represent our own place and time right now in western North Carolina and not anywhere else,” he said. “We have no intention of trying to connect to any other culture but our own. We don’t want to be anything else than what we are, and we’re not trying to pretend to be something we’re not.”

Two tray landscape displays – Left: “Aunt Martha’s Magic Garden” and right: “Mount Mitchell”

Joura said the most popular attractions within the arboretum’s bonsai collection are the tray landscape pieces, which he started to extract maximum effect out of plants that were too young to stand alone. Some displays represent spots in North Carolina places while some are simply generic Southern Appalachian expressions.

“The trees in the landscapes weren’t old enough or didn’t have enough presence or character to be displayed as individual single-tree bonsai and by mashing them together using stones and groundcover and whatnot, we could create a scene and more visual interest,” Joura said. 

He said visitors tend to find the landscapes appealing because they intuitively understand how to interact with the pieces, placing themselves into the scenes. 

“The idea is you shrink yourself down and put yourself into that picture, but for a lot of folks it’s difficult when the only information they get is just a single tree,” Joura said. “But give them a group of trees, some shrubs and stones and such, now they have an environment they don’t have to create so much out of their imagination.”

He said hearing visitors’ comments about their ability to relate to the landscapes and trees daily is gratifying rather than just listening to people wondering about how old a certain bonsai is or how much a display might cost. 

“If someone’s asking those questions, they’re getting blocked out by their preconceived notions about what’s important,” Joura said. “But the people who go in there and say, ‘That reminds me of that place we saw in California,’ that’s great – they’re completing the scene, taking what we’re presenting and adding their own experience and that makes it personal to them.”

Left: Eastern Redcedar, Right: Red Maple

Museum Curators: Robert Drechsler

Bob Drechsler, as curator of the bonsai collection, poses in 1987 for a picture in front of the juniper bonsai that inspired the design of the National Bonsai Foundation logo.

Welcome to our special blog series profiling the wonderful curators who have led us since the inception of the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum! Our first edition highlights the very first person to oversee the care of the Museum’s collections: Robert Drechsler. 

Drechsler began working at the U.S. National Arboretum in 1959 as a plant technician under Dr. Don Egolf. When Arboretum officials started planning a special celebration for the United States’ bicentennial that involved bonsai, Drechsler took a class at the Potomac Bonsai Association to become familiar with the art. 

He said the Arboretum originally asked someone else to take care of the incoming trees, but the person ended up not wanting the job. A government shutdown at the time meant nobody new could be hired to positions at federal agencies like the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which the curator role falls under.

Drechsler was already an Arboretum employee, so Director Dr. John Creech agreed he could serve as the first curator. But just because Drechsler hadn’t previously worked on bonsai didn’t mean he wasn’t prepared to take on his new role. 

“Trimming bonsai is an artistic form, and I had done flower arranging and such as a florist to work my way through college, so I had some idea of the artwork,” he said. “Plus, I had 17 years of work raising, trimming and caring for plants at the Arboretum.” 

Drechsler worked diligently to learn about bonsai, even spending six weeks training in Japan in 1977. He said Ruth Lamanna, a prominent member of the bonsai community, was especially helpful in developing his bonsai education. 

Drechsler helps unpack the newly-arrived crates of Japanese bonsai at the quarantine station in Glenn Dale, MD in April 1975.

Drechsler helped the two ladies care for the bonsai quarantined in Maryland, which used to house the U.S. plant introduction station. He worked on both the Japanese collection – the trees that started the Museum collections – and the trees U.S. President Richard Nixon brought back from his trip to China in the 1970s. 

Bonsai Master John Naka often stopped by to suggest bonsai care tips, like how to preserve deadwood on bonsai and penjing. 

“I took the ladies’ recommendations, and I gained more and more knowledge about the care of the plants, like repotting and soil techniques,” Drechsler said. “It was a learning experience I gained as the curator, rather than being knowledgeable about bonsai before the collection came.”

Former Arboretum Director John Creech speaks at the dedication ceremony for the Japanese Bonsai collection on July 9, 1976. Henry Kissinger, Secretary of State, is seated in the middle/right spot. Drechsler said this was one of the most memorable and impressive moments in his curatorship.

Drechsler said the best part of serving as curator was his ability to transform a group of unassuming plants into well-trimmed bonsai to present to the public. He said the ability and cooperation of volunteers was essential in maintaining excellent and appealing bonsai. 

Drechsler added that he loved to see groups that entered the Museum chatting loudly instantly quiet down in awe after setting their sights on the bonsai and penjing collections.

“Young kids would come in with their teachers, and they were thrilled that these ancient plants were that old,” he said.

Drechsler retired in 1996, after nearly 21 years of service to the Museum as the very first curator. He said he wanted to dedicate his free time entirely to leading the local masonic chapter. 

He occasionally volunteered at the Museum until a 2015 heart operation put him out of commission for volunteering. Drechsler has since focused his time on leading and partaking in the freemasonry fraternity.

LEFT: Drechsler hand-pollinates hibiscus in the Arboretum’s research greenhouse in 1964 when he worked as a research technician. RIGHT: Drechsler trimming a bald-cypress in the Yoshimura workroom in 2007 as a weekly volunteer.

“Bonsai brought the joy of working in an art form and the opportunity to enjoy an activity I’d like to do, but I was also paid for it, so I could make my living and have a retirement,” he said.

NBF honors Drechsler each year by funding the First Curator’s Apprentice program, which the Foundation created in 2011 to celebrate the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum’s 35th anniversary and to pay homage to Drechsler’s legacy as the original curator. Our 2019 apprentice Andy Bello now serves as the Museum’s assistant curator, and our 2020 apprentice is Sophia Osorio. 

“They knew I didn’t like my name on things, that I didn’t want it to be the ‘Robert Drechsler Apprenticeship,’” Drechsler said. “They did it as a nice gesture and a sort of thank you.”

NBF is grateful to Drechsler for taking the helm of the Museum and his incredible support of the bonsai community since. Our next profile will highlight his successor, Warren Hill, who oversaw the collection for the following five years. 

Bonsai Donors & Their Trees: Haruo “Papa” Kaneshiro

Kaneshiro works on a juniper group planting on a volcanic slab in Seattle, July 1984. Photo: ABS Bonsai Journal

When Jane Nakama reflects on the momentous legacy her father Haruo “Papa” Kaneshiro left behind, she most fondly remembers the people she met during his impressive life as a bonsai master.

Whether she traveled alongside her father to another part of the world or helped her parents entertain fellow bonsai lovers, including those who started as strangers, Nakama met wonderful artists from Europe, Australia and Asia and beyond.

“The bonsai community is filled with just above-and-beyond good people, and I totally appreciate that connection with people even today, 25, 30 years after dad’s passing,” she said. “It’s mind boggling to think all that connecting happened by word of mouth. It’s just amazing what bonsai brought to their lives.”

Christened “Papa” by the bonsai community for his father-like persona, Kaneshiro is touted for his unselfish and inclusive teaching and lifestyle. Kaneshiro was one of the founding members of the North American Bonsai Federation, a branch of the World Bonsai Friendship Federation.

But Nakama said her father didn’t truly develop his bonsai artistry until his mid-40s. In fact, Kaneshiro spent much of his early life working in restaurants and retired in his early 50s.

He met his wife, Masako, while working for her older brother who ran a fine dining and dancing restaurant. Nakama said her father had been waiting tables at elegant hotels in Hawaii, but he decided to open his own restaurant where his wife ran the front and waited tables as he baked pies and made soups from scratch with a wood-burning stove. 

“He’d purchase these logs, place them in the back of the restaurant and his friends would come over and chop them to fit the oven,” she said. 

Nakama said Kaneshiro’s interest in bonsai first sprouted when he was younger and traveled every so often to visit a friend who had bonsai in their backyard. But he really explored his passion for the art after he retired from being a restaurant owner and started subbing as a manager at an upscale restaurant when the current manager would go on vacation.

The six Kaneshiro siblings and their mother Masako at dinner to celebrate the dedication of the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum’s Haruo Kaneshiro Tropical Conservatory in 1993. Photo from Jane Nakama.

Kaneshiro’s Teaching Style

Nakama noted that there was an absence of organized classes or demonstrations when Kaneshiro was learning and first teaching the art of bonsai, so he had to order textbooks from Japan. 

“He was really self taught through experience,” she said. 

But her father’s influence as a master did not hinge on rigid teaching plans of bonsai rituals and traditions as an exact science with strict styling rules. Papa Kaneshiro believed that, just as every person is different, every plant is different; therefore bonsai should be each person’s own expression of how they think a tree should look in nature. 

“He shared a lot of this philosophy, too, so I think that’s why bonsai flourished in Hawaii,” Nakama said. “He tried to emulate nature in its most natural forms. He always said, ‘The plant will tell you how it wants to grow – you just guide it.’” 

After Kaneshiro passed, his widow Masako donated many plants to the National Bonsai Foundation, and an auction on the family’s property raised more than $10,000 to fund the creation of the Haruo Kaneshiro Tropical Conservancy at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum. 

“I’m very grateful that Mom and Dad were into bonsai as much as they were,” she said. “It was more than a shared hobby – the people we met were just incredible and changed their lives forever.”

One of Papa’s trees at our Museum: a Chinese Banyan. Read more about the bonsai in our Historical Tree Spotlight.

Working Under Papa Kaneshiro

David Fukumoto, the owner of Fuku-Bonsai Cultural Center in Hawaii, said he was lucky to have Papa Kaneshiro as both a friend and a mentor who defended his amateur bonsai efforts. 

Fukumoto said Kaneshiro understood the differences between the horticultural and ethnic cultural principles that dominate "traditional Japanese bonsai" as well as the greater Hawaiian multi-cultural values and tropical trees.

“He was a gentle non-conformist who politely praised everyone's bonsai efforts and did not try to impose his values on anyone,” Fukumoto said. “Because of him, Hawaii bonsai is family oriented and the friendships are probably more significant.”

Many bonsai teachers who came to Hawaii taught training techniques like cutting off aerial roots, creating  single trunk and training flat branch tiers to adhere to bonsai “rules” codified in the 1950s. Papa Kaneshiro trained his black pines in this manner, but he trained his other bonsai with “natural style,” Fukumoto said.  

When Japanese bonsai artists were given opportunities to teach bonsai in Hawaii, they tended to train ficus banyan bonsai by cutting off aerial roots, creating only a single trunk, and training flatten tiers of branches.  

“He encouraged each of us to follow natural tree structure, to be creative and create beautiful potted plants,” Fukumoto said. “Although bonsai was a large part of their lives, the Kaneshiro’s generous and thoughtful hospitality was legendary.”

The Kaneshiro family and bonsai community after the auction of Papa’s trees, the proceeds of which went to the U.S. National Arboretum. Photo from Jane Nakama.

Bonsai Around the World: The National Bonsai & Penjing Collection in Canberra, Australia

The national collection on display in Canberra, Australia. Photos courtesy of Leigh Taafe.

For our next Bonsai Around the World blog, we’re taking you to the land down under. 

The National Bonsai & Penjing Collection of Australia is home to 120 bonsai, an amalgamation of donations and loans that have been trained and grown 100 percent by Australian artists. We spoke with Curator Leigh Taafe about his personal connection with bonsai and the development of the bonsai collection in Australia’s capital, Canberra. 

Taafe said his journey from a bonsai hobbyist to the top position at the collection kicked off after he watched the original Karate Kid film, which uses bonsai as an archetype for the inner peace and symbol of what karate should be. He opened a commercial bonsai nursery in 2000, running classes and workshops and renting out bonsai to local offices and restaurants for about 13 years. 

The main influence on Taafe’s bonsai styling comes from Harry Tomlinson’s Complete Book of Bonsai, which was his sole source of inspiration and information before the internet became a prevalent bonsai resource.

“Once I became a professional I learned to just focus on what I was doing rather than anyone else,” he said. “I am a gatherer of information, but outside of maintenance and techniques, I tried to create my own style.”

Taafe, right, working with Assistant Curator Sam Thompson, left.

In 2010, Taafe officially joined as an assistant curator for three years then rose to the curator position. While the collection technically opened to the public in September 2008, the trees were located on a premise separate from its current location, which was established in 2013 at the National Arboretum in Canberra. 

“We started from the ground up,” Taafe said. “We started collecting trees in 2007 for the purpose of a national collection – it wasn’t a collection to begin with.” 

The arboretum, which was constructed as a monument to the people and homes lost in brush fires that decimated miles of land in the early 2000s, contains approximately 100 forests as well as gardens, playgrounds and a visitor center. The bonsai display area features about 70 trees ready for show but also a small area for trees undergoing various maintenance stages. 

Trees that need to keep warm in the winter, like bougainvillea, are stored in glass with heaters to prevent subzero temperatures at night. Taafe said Canberra temperatures can reach minus 8 degrees Celsius (or about 17 degrees Fahrenheit).

LEFT: A smooth-barked apple (gum tree) native to Australia and nearby islands that dates back to 1959.

RIGHT: The box leaf privet, dating back to 1880.

The displays in the National Bonsai & Penjing Collection are arranged simply in an aesthetic and appealing manner, not limiting trees to areas for specific artists or regions. Every tree has been styled and grown by Australian artists, as Australia imposes strict quarantine requirements for imported goods. 

“From the outset we decided the collection was going to be a representation of the art of bonsai in Australia,” Taafe said. 

A loans program, through which the collection harbors trees from artists around the country for periods of up to two years at a time, keeps the wider Australian bonsai community involved and provides for “a dynamic, ever-changing arrangement of bonsai and penjing,” he said. Occasionally, artists from different countries will stop by for demonstrations and events, but the collection doesn’t contain any trees that artists visiting Australia have styled from raw materials. 

The oldest tree in the collection, which dates back to 1880, spent approximately 100 years growing in a hedge, and the youngest tree is only about 18 years old. The oldest non-living display at the collection is a petrified wood stump that is 165 million years old. 

Assistant Curator Sam Thompson extensively trained in Japan. Taafe said he performs great work on older trees.

Taafe said Australian bonsai artists tend to be influenced by their surrounding landscape, particularly when styling native species. But their techniques are also molded by Japanese and European artists. 

“Some of our early learnings date back to the 70s, when the likes of John Naka came for workshops and such, so we do have that Japanese influence,” Taafe said. “But when I look at my collection, it’s not overly stylized. It’s quite a natural appearance.”

He added that the collection is a partnership between the Australian bonsai community and the ACT government. Approximately 60 volunteers put in about 140 hours of work each week to ensure the collection is up to par for the 175,000 visitors the collection receives each year. 

Taafe said his relationship with bonsai has changed over the years, from a fascination with the art of creating miniature trees to the commercial route, which was a means to provide for his family. He’s the only one in his family that really got involved with bonsai – the interest was not passed down throughout generations.

But when he became curator of the Australian national collection, his focus shifted to making the art readily available to everyone. 

“I just wanted to share bonsai, not only what we have here on display but also the knowledge,” he said. “Hopefully I’m sparking an interest in other people who might get involved in bonsai.” 

LEFT: A penjing styled the Lingnan way starting in 1994, representing a mythical dragon.

RIGHT: Petrified wood stump more than 165 million years old.