6
CapitalPress.com
August 19, 2016
Bonsai nursery owner thinks small
By JANAE SARGENT
Capital Press
Mirai Bonsai nursery,
workshop and school in
St. Helens, Ore., melds the
2,000-year-old Japanese tra-
dition with a unique Ameri-
canized look to create living
works of art.
Ryan Neil, owner of Mi-
rai Bonsai, is one of the U.S.
pioneers of bonsai as an art
form. He created the nursery
in 2010.
Bonsai is the practice of
creating a miniature but real-
istic representation of nature
in the form of a tree.
Americanized bonsai uses
the techniques and principles
from traditional Japanese bon-
sai but portrays American land-
scapes using native materials.
Neil said using trees that
people know makes the con-
text easier to identify with and
relate to.
Before starting Mirai Bon-
sai, Neil studied under Masa-
hiko Kimura, a bonsai master
in Japan, for eight years.
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“My breakthrough came
when I realized there is a lack
of connection in the Japanese
model,” Neil said. “With our
trees, people are saying ‘I’ve
seen that before, I’ve been
there.’ It helps them appre-
ciate bonsai in a whole new
way.”
Mirai Bonsai’s main lag-
ship trees are Ponderosa
pines, Rocky Mountain juni-
pers, Sierra junipers, Doug-
las irs, Colorado spruces,
Engelmann spruces and Cali-
fornia junipers. Neil said the
nursery is conifer-specialized
and focuses on native Western
hearty species. Bonzai trees
range in price from $800 up,
according to Mirai’s website.
Neil said his company is
paving a new direction for
bonsai in America.
Last fall, Neil brought his
living art to the Portland Art
Museum in what curators said
was the most highly attended
private exhibit in their mem-
ory.
Neil and his wife, Chelsea,
envisioned the exhibition,
called the Artisans Cup, as an
exhibition of American Bon-
sai featuring 70 trees from
across North America.
“I’ve never seen anything
like (The Artisans Cup),”
Neil said. “We tapped into
a new way of approaching
bonsai in the way we pre-
sented the art form and al-
lowed people to view and
experience it.”
It also opened the door for
Neil to exhibit his work at the
Portland Japanese Gardens,
the Wieden+Kennedy adver-
tising agency and several ar-
tistic installations around the
country.
Neil studied horticul-
tural science at California
Polytechnic State University
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