The world-renowned Bonsai Exhibition Garden at The North Carolina Arboretum inspires thousands of visitors annually, and now the garden’s curator is offering a unique glimpse into the art of bonsai and its place in Appalachia.
The Curator’s Journal by Arthur Joura is a year-long online course offering the ultimate insider’s view of bonsai at The North Carolina Arboretum. The course launched on March 25, and is designed so that participants can join in at any time and receive a full year’s entries, special course materials and opportunities to interact with the curator.
“Developing The Curator’s Journal has offered both adult education programs and the bonsai program a new medium for collaborating in telling a story that’s been 30 years in the growing,” says the Arboretum’s adult education programs manager Rebecca Caldwell. “I love to hear from Journal subscribers how excited they are to read Arthur’s writing about creating with native species in signature ways or assembling a miniature landscape that seems familiar but is wholly a product of his imagination or even learning practical tips for managing garden pests.”
When Joura was first assigned the task of caring for the bonsai at the Arboretum he had no familiarity with it. As he immersed himself in studying the subject, his focus moved away from cultural tradition and toward horticulture and nature. He began using plants native to the WNC region because he found those species familiar, interesting and emblematic of his part of the world. They were also readily available.
“In the end, what mattered more than using native plant material was using native experience, that is, drawing on my own first-hand experience of trees as they are here in the mountains of Southern Appalachia,” says Joura. “That made bonsai more relevant to this place, and more personally satisfying, too.”
Joura has spent a 30-year career shaping a highly original collection for the Arboretum, one that is devoted to sharing “the simple truth about bonsai,” a perfect melding of art and horticulture in miniature. His efforts to create a bonsai experience that combines an ancient Eastern discipline with the natural flora of the Southern Appalachian Mountains have earned him the acclaim of the worldwide bonsai community.
More information about registration, including preview journal entries, can be found at CuratorsJournal.net. Find out more about this and other adult education offerings at NCArboretum.org.
