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Craig Coussins The Photography Bank.com |
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Please have a look at some more of my images here
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Ketchikan Alaska
Kunio Kobayashi and Craig Coussins, Tokyo
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 Kyoto
New Page on
Japanese Gardens
Cafe des Federations Bouchon-Lyon-
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 Craig with the late Saburo Kato at his home in Mansi-en
The chairman of Japan Bonsai
Association, at his Mansei-en Bonsai garden in Bonsai Village Omiya,
Saitama Prefecture with a
copy of Craig's new Book Bonsai Masterclass exchanged for a copy of
the Mansei-en Book -
Always happy memories of the Kato family and their great friendship
and kindness. |
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Click for big pictures of Joy and Colin Morton from New Zealand visiting my garden in August 2010 |
During Early 2008, my friend, Yumiko Hirohama from Nara came to visit me with her mum. Yumiko is a teacher in Kyoto and a student of Buddhist architecture and Japanese Roofing Tiles. Yumiko has been my guide in Nara in 2006 and 2007. Yumiko is standing front of some of my Yamadori. Big John is on her left. Wealso looked after her during her visit in 2011. |
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Big John: John Yoshio Naka first came to the
UK for a Tour in 1984. Craig filmed the entire tour with a Video company
and then Craig spent 10 weeks editing each of the four hours into one
hour films. Originally sold back in the 1980's the Videos sales soon
collapsed because of wholesale copying by clubs, societies and other
people. Theft in other words. the money that FoBBS was supposed to
get was quickly diluted by these individuals. These films are now being
presented as DVDs and will be sold to aid Federation of British Bonsai
Society Funds. With some hi Tec marking we will hopefully be able to
reduce this kind of Piracy theft. One venue, Edinburgh was never shown
before and this will form part of the DVD set..
During 1984 Naka san
visited Edinburgh where Craig hosted him for workshops as well s the
demo. Naka san worked on this Scots pine and this was named after him
and called , 'Big John'. From there on in Peter Adams and Craig (shown
here) worked on the tree until 1999. A story page will soon be on
this website of its development. Big John is one of the most famous trees
in the UK because of its connection with the late John Yoshio Naka. The
hanging branch is getting too heavy now so Steve Tolley
suggested a design correction and based on that I restyled
the lower section and Peter Fole helped me to redefine the
present shape early in 2009. The suggestion from Steve was
that the hanging section
would look better by removing excess foliage and defining the angle of the
cascade.Pic 1 is with Peter Adams after we styled the lower branch in 1990. Pic 2 is with John Naka in 1984 during the first styling. In the last 20 years over 80% of the foliage has been removed and re-grown to the present shape.
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Craig is now a freelance footwear designer ALL
over the globe
Craig has been a dance shoe maker for over 45 years
Peter Foele now lives in Scotland and
maintains some collections including helping me with my own.
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Rob and Craigs Celtis group
Knowing that Rob was so highly respected as a teacher I asked him to be in my recent book where I included some of Rob’s superb work. It was through Rob’s contacts that this book also showed some of the amazing and international quality of the Bonsai of South African artists. As a fan of South African Bonsai and these artists I was happy to know that. Rob illuminated our life we should not be here to praise the ashes of the departed but to preserve his fire through the joyous memory of the man himself and that we will always be able to say, 'Rob Clausen, I knew him well'.
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Buy my books on Amazon I hope that you enjoy my 322 page website and if so please let me know. If you find any errors please tell me. Please visit my testimonials pages to find out a little more on who I am (:-o)) Garden Page My little collection
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Who am I?
Please
visit my testimonials pages.
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CLICK
ANY ITEM TO GO TO THAT PAGE
Bonsai for Sale
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Please
note that this is a personal website and not a free
resource for general information
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ANY ITEM TO GO TO THAT PAGE
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AND NOW THE PAGES ON CRAIG COUSSINS BONSAI SITE
MENU
Click any of the
images below and click any line of the main menu |
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All content on this website is protected by
Copyright ©1994-2013 Craig Coussins.
No portion of this site may be reproduced, copied, stored or modified
without permission from Craig Coussins.
My logo is of a Trident I worked on for a number of years after
getting
it from Peter Adams in 1980 and
which we called the Slug because when
without leaves the bonsai
looked like a rearing slug. At the time we
were
poking fun at growers who labelled , sometimes mediocre, bonsai
with
grandiose names such as 'Crane Flying through Bamboo' etc.
The
Slug was featured in my first book, Bonsai for Beginners. I
sold this
tree in 1989. I had the opportunity to get it back from a friend during 2005
and so it finally comes home. I will be restoring this wonderful trees
ramification
over the next three years and will feature that on this website.
This is a 19322 page plus website.
Links are also internal from specific pages of interest.
Please email me if you
would like a reciprocal link, Over 5000 visitors a
week visit this
website which has over 322 pages.
Craig.Coussins@btinternet.com
Website search technology courtesy FreeFind.com
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On
my first Bonsai visit to South Africa I needed to find
material for my demo at the convention. Rob was kind enough
to let me use some raw material from his large Yamadori
collection . I chose Celtis Africana or White Stinkwood
which allowed me to prune and do some basic styling
quickly. Rob and some of the East Rand guys helped me
prepare the trees for transplanting and we spent a day
getting the Material ready. On the big day I was on the
stage and explained that I was going to make a group. Some
of the audience started whispering while others looked on in
disbelief. The stage was empty except for a table on which
there was a tiny pot with three tiny trees no more that 8
inches tall. I looked at the audience and then the material
, made the three tree group while all the time keeping
a very straight face. When completed five minutes later I
exploded with anger saying 'was this all South Africa could
offer a visiting teacher?' Then I threw the tiny group into
the side of the stage. The audience was either amused or
horrified as after all, they did not know how I was going to
react with this demo material. Then Rob and his team came on
stage with a six foot long pot and these enormous trees. The
audience were delighted with the joke and we had what was a
four hour demo. Here are the results. It was really all down
to Rob who made that demo possible.
My
new Scrolls pages www.tokonomascrolls.com
