The Artist Behind This Year's World Bonsai Day T-Shirt Design: Aaron Stratten

Aaron working on his bonsai.

The artwork featured on this year’s commemorative World Bonsai Day t-shirt was designed by Aaron Stratten. Aaron is a bonsai lover, multi-medium artist, art educator, and self-proclaimed “gardenbody.” He currently serves as Potomac Bonsai Association’s President and has taught art at Faifax County Public Schools for over a quarter century. We were lucky to sit down with him to learn more about his inspiration for this year’s shirt, what he loves most about bonsai, and why he thinks you should join a bonsai club. Read all about Aaron below…And, order your t-shirt for this year’s World Bonsai Day (WBD) on May 13th.

1.) Tell us a bit about your art form, your process, and your history.

To understand me as an artist, you have to first understand that I am an art educator.

I have served Fairfax County Public Schools for nearly 25 years as a high school and middle school art teacher, and as the K-12 art educational specialist in the fine arts office. I have also taught at the preschool and college levels. Art teachers in public schools teach a full range of media and skills. This educator lens reinforces a  widely-varied personal art practice which includes drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, ceramics, digital art, and of course, bonsai. I believe deeply in teaching and practicing a variety of ideation and planning processes as the foundation for creating artwork, and for solving any other sort of problem, so my process involves many drafts, sketches, and iterations.

For my personal education in art, I went to Indiana University where I earned a BS in art education and a BA in fine arts with a focus on painting. I later got a Masters from Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) where I had a dual focus on painting and printmaking. The irony is not lost on me that I spent so many years training in two-dimensional media and now spend most of my creative energies in three dimensions, shaping living trees and pots to keep them in.

2.) Tell us about the design you created for WBD. What was your inspiration, your process, technique, etc.

Aaron’s design for the 2023 World Bonsai Day commemorative t-shirt.

The 2023 World Bonsai Day t-shirt design was intended from the start as a single color, graphic image that would capture the essence of bonsai and bonsai practice rather than the image of a particular bonsai tree. It is a combination of traditional ink drawing, cut paper, and digital manipulation. Progressively larger circles contain, first, a simplified ink drawing of a tree in a pot illustrating the most basic translation of the Japanese kanji, “bon” (a pot or tray) and “sai” (a tree or plant). The second ring shows ramified branches extending outward from the center of the design just as branches extend from the trunk of a tree, and the third ring represents the life-giving foliage of the tree represented with a simplified pattern of ink brush blots. The circles are not concentric, but are very intentionally arranged with asymmetry, an essential aspect of bonsai design, and imperfectly to give a nod to the wabi-sabi aesthetic which is deeply embedded in bonsai practice and is reinforced by the imperfection of the torn-edge of the outer shape. Order yours today!

3.) How did you get involved with bonsai? What do you love about the practice and the art form?

I have practiced bonsai for over 25 years. It combines my love of art and a love of nature gained from spending so much time outside in my rural Indiana upbringing. Bonsai also aligns nicely with some of my artmaking habits. As a painter, I have often struggled with knowing when to stop. I would continue refining and adjusting a painting forever if I didn’t have a deadline. This tendency toward continuous refinement and iteration lent itself well to working with a medium that continues to grow and change over time. It also inspired the title of my bonsai blog, Bonsai Iterate.

I practiced solo for way too long and didn’t join a bonsai club until 2016 when I found the Northern Virginia Bonsai Society. My learning accelerated and before I knew it, I was president of the club, a role I held from 2018 through 2022. The best advice I can give anyone who loves bonsai is – join a bonsai club! The connections to other practitioners is invaluable, and your learning will take off leading to better, healthier trees.

4.) Do you have a favorite tree at the Museum? If so, which and why?

American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) donated by Fred H. Mies in 2003, in training since 1979

There are so many amazing trees at the bonsai museum but I am regularly drawn back to the American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) in the North American Collection. My time in the woods in the Midwest and in Virginia has fostered a love of the big, native deciduous trees of our temperate forests. While these species, like the American Beech, may not offer naturally small leaves ideal for miniature trees, they still speak to me as representations of the environments I know so well. Visiting the Beech at the museum is also inspiration for continuing to work on a few beech in my own collection.

5.) How will you be celebrating World Bonsai Day?

I am currently the president of the Potomac Bonsai Association (PBA) so I just might be spending World Bonsai Day – the weekend immediately following the annual PBA Bonsai Festival – recovering from all that we put into running that event. I’m a bit of a homebody… or maybe a garden-body (Can we make that a thing, please?) so I can’t think of anything better than spending time with my bonsai and in my garden at my home in Woodbridge, Virginia. The roses and Siberian irises will be blooming, as they always do just in time for Mother’s Day, and all the trees will be lush and green. What could be better?

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Purchase your commemorative
World Bonsai Day 2023 t-shirt today!

ASSISTANT CURATOR'S BLOG: Fall at the National Bonsai & Penjing Museum

Figure 1Trident Maple (Acer buergerianum) donated by Ted C. Guyger in 1990, in training since 1975.

Practicing the art of bonsai and penjing is rewarding in many ways, and each season provides a multitude of beauty, work, and lessons. As fall continues, all the hard work we bonsai practitioners have put in throughout the growing season on our deciduous trees is honored by an array of yellows, oranges, and reds.

Now in mid-to-late fall, we have a moment to breathe the cool autumn air and enjoy the vibrant colors. But like many things in life, this moment of visual pleasure and relaxation feels all too short lived. The pigments slowly begin to fade, and leaves tumble to our display areas, signaling that the next phase of seasonal work has arrived. 

Leaves dropping from our deciduous trees conveys that the stored resources in the leaves have been reabsorbed into the twigs, branches, trunks, and roots. This reserved energy will power our trees when they awaken to grow again in the spring.

Now we can begin tertiary structural pruning of many of our deciduous trees, like the much-beloved trident maples and other non-flowering species. This pruning process includes spotting twigs that have thickened in the outer canopy, detracting from the delicate, finely ramified structure we strive for. We also look for areas where more than two twigs are growing from one location, known as a node. By reducing these areas to two twigs, we can prevent unwanted swelling and promote a smooth transition of taper from the trunk to the tip of the twig. 

Ginkgo biloba – donated by Kiku Shinkai in 1976, in training since 1926

Lastly, we look at areas where twigs have elongated too far and prune them back to scale with the design of the tree. This work may be completed after the leaves are done changing color until late winter but should finish before the buds begin to elongate and open. If we prune during the dormancy period, we reduce the chance that new growth will be stimulated due to the removal of growth inhibiting hormones. We prune judiciously to perpetuate health and the execution of the design we have been working so hard to create.

While pines, spruces, and junipers don’t lose all their foliage, these conifers also need some attention before the onset of winter dormancy. Pines and spruces can now be cleaned of old needles, and their designs can be refined with wiring. Weaker foliage on junipers can be removed, and adventitious growth can be eliminated from the crotches of branches.

Cleaning out old needles and growth allows more light to enter the canopy and stimulate interior buds, helping them more strongly develop. Cleaning trees this time of year can be tedious, especially on a large collection, but I think this intimate operation brings us closer to our trees and gives us an even better understanding of their health and growth habits. 

This is also an important time to take advantage of the last warm months to ensure all winter preparation and some spring preparation is completed, and those techniques vary greatly. The simplest is arranging the area where trees will be placed on the ground out of the cold drying winds. Raised beds can be constructed to heel trees into mulch to protect the delicate root systems. Cold frames can be built and prepared to provide protection from wind and frost damage.

Cleaning buildings and testing heating and ventilation systems in greenhouses should be done to ensure all mechanisms are functioning properly. No matter the method of protection, be on top of this task before the temperatures dip below 40° F. If a random cold snap of 28° F or below arrives before everything is prepared for winter, the best thing for your trees is to place them on the ground for the night.  

American Beech (Fagus grandifolia) donated by Fred H. Mies in 2003, in training since 1979

Many other tasks may be completed at this time of year, but the ones shared above are what I feel to be the most important. As the leaves on all of the trees in the landscape and in our bonsai and penjing gardens begin to fall, and winter approaches, we, like the trees, must try to store our energy, shed our stress, and prepare for the challenging cold months ahead.

Sincerely,

Andrew Bello
Assistant Curator

The National Bonsai and Penjing Museum
U.S. National Arboretum