I have been fascinated with bonsai since childhood, but it remained out of my reach until 2007. For me, styling trees and making bonsai pots were inseparable and simultaneous right from the start. I made my first bonsai pot in 2007 at home and fired it at NSW Pottery Supplies. In 2008, I joined Ceramic Study Group (a potter's society) and got involved in its wood-fired kiln activities. In 2010, I began learning pottery under professional guidance at Macquarie Hills Potters (a communal ceramic studio). Making bonsai pots along with other potters who make anything but bonsai pots is a lot of fun!
My day time job is a scientist and I have an insatiable thirst for knowledge. This also applies to my interest in bonsai. To start with, I view it in a much broader context of art, history and culture of the Far East. For me, bonsai is intimately linked to the aesthetics of Japanese and Chinese tea culture (e. g. cha-no-yu and gong-fu-cha). Through tea bonsai is connected with Chinese and Japanese painting, calligraphy, architecture, garden design, performing arts and many other cultural aspects. I know it is too much, but I am a self-confessed bonsai otaku and this is how I have fun.
