Bonsai Mirai: Asymmetry

There’s never a dull moment at Mirai. But one of the most beautiful aspects of the hustle and bustle in the garden is getting to spend time with traveling bonsai vagabonds crossing the country to keep the movement of bonsai activity going. This summer has been particularly busy with guests, students, and friends from old and new. One fateful weekend recently the stars aligned for Steve Varland of the Backcountry Boys and Davi...

The summer at Mirai has been as lively as any season in the past 16 years of the garden and company. Ryan and his team had an incredible session with students, guests from across the country, and a significant amount of positivity pumped into the facility from the community. Needless to say, Mirai is alive and kicking, living at that frantic pace that Ryan thrives on. 

In the middle of another hot and demanding day of watering...

Every pocket of the country has someone passionate about bonsai adapting their practice to the particulars and extremes of the environment. It’s one of the great marvels within the art form, the human ingenuity to create and cultivate bonsai despite the harshness of the weather and location. Jon White carries forward the lineage of pioneers in the Boise region of Idaho who have been doing just that for decades; defying the ru...

You never know where a cup of coffee and a conversation amongst two friends can go. On a recent Saturday morning, following the final class session of the summer, Ryan Neil and longtime friend and Mirai student Ryan Clumpner sat down for a cup of coffee before R.C. returned home to San Diego. As they sat discussing a recent body of ceramic work R.C. brought to Mirai for feedback, the subject of third nature came up as a recent talk...

Life is what you make it. For Craig and Kendra Pearce moving into the wilds of Bone Island off the coast of British Columbia was a gesture of intention to change the way they interact with the natural world and to slow down from the frantic pace of urban living. The daily reminders of the world around them and the necessity to interface with nature enhanced the way Craig and Kendra lived. Over time, their desire to create slower, a...

The garden team’s time playing with rocks has officially come to an end. Brandon, Brock, and Ryan sit down in the studio to discuss the finale of the garden build extravaganza that, like many other projects at Mirai, became something much bigger than a simple landscaping project. From boulders and trees to the discovery of cutting-edge bonsai stock, and a lot of meandering discussions about life and the implications of living...

Ryan recently sat down with apprentice Brock Arvesen to reflect on the unanticipated chaos that has followed Mirai's post-repotting garden build. There’s a therapy and acceptance of reality that comes with ambitious undertakings at Mirai and no better place to work through the frustrations of operating a bonsai nursery while chasing artistic ambitions, than with the people who are in the trenches together. Equal parts honesty...

Thomas Nevar is one of the most brilliant and powerful creatives Mirai has had the pleasure of working with. Through his graphic design, sculpture, and painting, Thomas has not only inspired projects at Mirai, Thomas’s work has had a direct impact on Mirai as a brand, compositions within the garden, and the spaces people at Mirai interact with. 

During one of his visits, Thomas and Ryan discussed an informal collaboratio...

Austin Heitzman has made an indelible mark on bonsai, and put his stamp on the art form in North America. Beyond the technique and engineering that have allowed him to make some of the most gravity defying and cutting-edge designs in the bonsai realm, Austin’s passion for the unseen, never-before done, and the assumed impossible make his work something that stands alone. Ryan and Austin sat down on a cool spring evening to ca...

In the world of being a bonsai professional at Mirai the end of repotting season makes the beginning of another very exciting and dramatically different scope of work. Think of the season for garden building and landscape work as a palette cleanser for the long season of watering and bonsai madness that awaits once trees enter the post-flush phase. Every year, Ryan takes time to celebrate a job well done repotting and indulges in h...

The longstanding question of how to get more people involved in bonsai has been asked and pontificated about since the beginning of bonsai clubs in North America. This obscure art form has so many barriers to entry and at times seems impossible to expand due to its intricacies and nuances. However, Tim Arsenault and his team at Bonsai BAR found a common past time to pull beginners into the art and have started building a broader an...

Repotting season is always a journey filled with highs and lows. Each year, when all is said and done there is much to reflect on. At Mirai, repotting is the technique Ryan and his team practice the most. With that, a single season of repotting feels like a lifetime. These recaps are more of a documentation of progress than anything else. Join Ryan, Brock, and Brandon as they relax for a moment between repots to recap the highs and...

Kindness. Humility. Generosity. These are words anyone discussing Harold Sasaki would use to describe this gentle giant of a man. But those of us who have been personally impacted by Harold know there is a tenacity to our teacher, a hunger for knowledge, a curiosity for what’s possible, and a glean of motivation in his eye that propelled him to be one of the greatest trailblazers and pioneers of bonsai culture in North Americ...

Speaking with creative people about their medium and process is one of the greatest aspects of Asymmetry. To know how other artists view the world and express themselves through their work inspires and informs the tools we all summon to bring beauty through art into the world. Stephen Voss is a D.C. based photographer whose work we have admired at Mirai for over a decade. We initially were exposed to Stephen’s work through hi...

From youth education in bonsai to elite alpine instruction where people’s lives are on the line, Joshua Stewart is an educational psychologist who is applying his expertise to a multitude of projects and disciplines. Even though we’ve been working with Josh for several years now it took sitting down with him on the podcast to fully understand what exactly he does. Ryan and Josh discuss the process of applying psychology...

On a recent cold rainy morning prior to the start of the 100th Kokufu exhibition fellow bonsai professional Andrew Robson joined us to discuss the potential for expansion of display opportunities at the next Pacific Bonsai Expo. This show has rapidly risen as the premier exhibition of bonsai in North America, and the efforts of Eric Shrader, Jonas Dupuich, and Andrew Robson to create a destination to display bonsai at the highest l...

It might be an American thing to try and define how culture impacts bonsai, or it might just be a reality of this very deep artform we all love. Aarin Packard, curator of the Pacific Bonsai Museum in Federal Way, Washington, joins Ryan to discuss the subject and interviews Ryan about his thoughts for an exhibition the Pacific Bonsai Museum is working on in conjunction with this year’s World Cup. Aarin selected seasoned and re...

From slangin’ exotic plants out of the back of a Lexus to architecting a budding plant-centered design movement taking southern California by storm, the Plant Daddies are a breath of fresh air and inspiration. Leaning on their long-standing friendship and dedication to bringing people happiness through the compositions they create, the trio has rapidly risen in the design world of Southern California and beyond. Dane, Macy, a...

What happens when trees are confronted with rapidly changing conditions in their environment? Do some trees suffer? Do others thrive? What causes this to occur, and can we use this information to create a more sustainable future for our forests and the trees we love? 

These, and other questions, are at the root of Meghan Midgley’s research her and a select group of colleagues are doing at the Morton Arboretum in Illinois...