Amazing Living Art: Pooktre Tree Shaping

Peter Cook and Becky Northey met in 1995, became partners and began shaping plum tree suckers into living art they callPooktre. During their first year they started shaping the young trees into a coffee table and a mirror frame – and it has grown from there.

The Tree People

(images via: Pooktre)

The Pooktre tree people are an interesting and ongoing part of the Pooktre garden. The final use and location of many of the living tree people is undetermined, sometimes for years. Some will be harvested, while others will be permanent residents in the Pooktre garden. The Hello Man Pooktre ended up as the mascot for the Growing Village.

Mature Trees: After Years of Shaping…

(images via: Pooktre)

Over the years the trees are shaped and formed into tables, hat and coat racks, chairs, beds, mirror frames and anything else Peter and Becky decide. The parts of the trees that are pruned off during the shaping are often rooted and are grown into more living art. The furniture is often used in the garden, long before harvest.

Shaping Trees into Furniture

(images via: Pooktre)

The shaping process takes years. New trees are planted in the Spring and Peter and Becky harvest completed pieces in the Fall. After harvesting, the stumps usually sprout new growth, which can be again sculpted into living art or sustainable furniture.

Sustainable Furniture from Shaped Trees

(images via: Pooktre)

After trees are carefully sculpted for years into the desired shape, the mature pieces are harvested. Peter saws the trees at the base and begins the work of removing the bark to create naturally beautiful and unique art furniture. After a six-month to three-year period of drying, the Pooktre is sanded and smoothed and the finished work is oiled or stained and given new life as a treasured heirloom.

Before the Pooktres: Intricate Wood Carvings

(images via: Pooktre)

Peter is no stranger to working with wood. Before he and Becky began shaping trees he made amazingly intricate carvings from single pieces of wood. He still enjoys sculpting different types of wood and also works with sandstone. All of his unique artwork is always derived from nature.

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Tree Art: 6 Amazingly Creative Bonsai Artists

Bonsai artists have to have patience: their medium is growing and constantly changing.  Most people were introduced to bonsai by the Karate Kid’s Mr. Miyagi,  but bonsai culture is alive and well outside of the movies.  Like any art form, it has its stars and envelope pushers.  Here are a half-dozen of the world’s most creative and skilled modern bonsai artists.

Masahiko Kimura

(images via jose marimura)

Masahiko Kimura shares a name with the famous judo practitioner whose brutal joint locks earned him worldwide fame.  But the bonsai artist Kimura (no relation) is equally well known to his peers. He first began to study a bonsai in order to please his mother.  He made his name in the industry because of the way he was able to shape deadwood.  He is known for his cutting edge work and for challenging tradition with his designs.

Ben Oki

(images via ben oki bonsai)

Ben Oki is bonsai artist to the stars.  A landscaper and gardener with a business degree from one of Japan’s most prestigious business schools, he has created gardens for movie stars like Cybil Shepherd.  All his work shows his early classical training.

Oki studied under modern bonsai’s original master, John Naka (see below).  His gardens and bonsai designs are more classical than some of the other artists on this list.  He has received numerous awards both in the US and Japan.  He has even had an award named after himself, the Ben Oki International Design Award.

Lindsey Bebb

(images via The Art of Bonsai Project)

Lindsey Bebb is one of Australia’s foremost bonsai artists.  He has been shaping miniature trees for nearly 40 years and has built a successful business around his work, running the only fully accredited bonsai retail shop in Australia.

Unlike some of the others on this list, color plays a major part in Bebb’s work.  Many of his miniature trees have flowers or leaves with hues that fall outside of the usual green and grey color spectrums.  His trees have a fuller, more natural look because of the leaves.

Quinquan Zhao

(images via artofbonsai.org)

Quinquan Zhou is most famous for creating penjing (miniature landscapes that combine bonsai with soil, foliage, and rock).  Most people are probably more familiar with this Chinese art than the art of bonsai itself.  These landscapes have been seen in classical Chinese paintings for ages.

Born near the Yangtze River in Central China, Zhou has traveled around Europe, the Pacific Rim, and the Americas teaching and designing.  He has published books on penjing and is known for giving live demonstrations that children find especially entertaining.  He is also known for pioneering the use of marble in his designs to evoke the mountain scenery for which Central and Southern China are so famous.

Robert Steven

(images via knowledge of bonsai)

Robert Steven is one of Indonesia’s most famous bonsai artists.  He is known for his somewhat avant guarde approach to penjing and bonsai.  His work does not have the same picturesque qualities that characterizes some of the others on this list.  Still, it would be a stretch to call him “bonsai’s bad boy.”  He has won major mainstream awards including the Ben Oki International Design Award.

Steven is quite active in the bonsai scene in Indonesia.  In fact, the art has gained a foothold on the archipelago and has become a popular form of classical art.

John Naka

(images via bonsai 4 me and art of bonsai)

The late John Naka was the most famous American bonsai artist of his time.  Though he was born in the US, he returned to Japan to study bonsai at a very young age.  He was the darling of the American bonsai scene for much of the 1950s and 60s.  His most recognizable work, Goshin, still sits at the US National Arboretum.  It consists of 11 impossibly straight juniper trees.

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Most Beautiful 35 Photos Ever!

Photography is a very powerful medium and a very difficult craft. Excellent photos don’t only display some facts — they tell stories, awake feelings and manage to share with the audience the emotions a photographer experienced when clicking the shot button. Taking excellent pictures is damn hard as you need to find a perfect perspective and consider the perfect timing. To achieve brilliant photography you need practice and patience. However, it is worth it: the results can be truly stunning.

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