Details

Film Preview and Conversation with Appalachian Bonsai's Ben Kirkland & Arboretum Bonsai Curator Arthur Joura

ONSITE | Wednesday, November 2, 5 - 6 p.m.

FREE to subscribers of The Curator's Journal

Course Capacity: 20 (PLEASE NOTE: Preregistration is required for this small-group special program.)

Prior to the pandemic, filmmaker Ben Kirkland spent many hours capturing a bonsai styling session with Arthur Joura. No public audience, just a couple of artists figuring out how to capture a creative process involving power tools and a very distinctive tree. Grown from a seedling in place at the Arboretum, the elm bonsai made its debut in the garden in 2020. Now at last we get to preview the final cut and hear about the making of the American elm.

Join us for this conversation between makers and learn how this tree epitomizes Joura's approach to naturalism and his elevation of an American bonsai.

Ben Kirkland is the content creator for YouTube channel Appalachian Bonsai and is an instructor of industrial design at Virginia Tech’s School of Architecture + Design. He is a member of the Hinoki Bonsai Club, of Roanoke, VA, and has been creating bonsai since 2007. Ben has given several lectures and demos about bonsai in the surrounding area and focuses on using native tree species in his designs.

Arthur Joura has been the Bonsai Curator at The North Carolina Arboretum since the inception of the bonsai program in 1992. Joura’s educational background is in fine art. He has studied bonsai with some of the leading bonsai authorities in the United States and was an official student to the Nippon Bonsai Association in Japan. Over the past 30 years, Joura has built the bonsai program to be one of the Arboretum’s strongest components. He has toured extensively as a lecturer and teacher, and has been featured in numerous regional and national publications for his work with the Arboretum’s bonsai collection. In 1996, he organized the first Carolina Bonsai Expo, which had an unparalleled 24-year run. In his development of the Arboretum’s collection, which now numbers well over 100 specimens, plus many others in production, Joura constantly seeks to forge connections between the art of bonsai and the Arboretum’s mission to promote appreciation of the flora and culture of the Southern Appalachians. The inspiration for his design work with the Arboretum’s collection is not the bonsai depicted in books and magazines, but rather the example of nature as represented by the wild trees of the fields and forests that cloak the Blue Ridge Mountains. Joura feels this is a return to the roots of bonsai as an artistic vehicle to express an individual’s experience of the natural world around them.

Registration and Participation in In-Person Classes through the Arboretum:

• Registration for this class will close two days before the class start date.
• Make sure you enter your email address correctly when registering.
• Registrants will be sent a reminder email the day prior to class with the meeting location, current Safety Guidelines, and additional details.
• In the event of inclement weather or other emergent circumstances, the instructor will be in contact with students to arrange an online session as an alternative to meeting onsite.

*Please add adulteducation@ncarboretum.org to your contacts to ensure our emails do not end up in your spam folder.