Tiffany Bae

Tiffany’s writing uses character detail in addition to the metaphor of the bonsai to explore the nature of creativity and art.

The Bonsai

When the craftsman takes his shears, the handles meld into the bulbous joints of his fingers and bloom as a fresh appendage. Ink drips from the stunted arch of scissor-blades and he commences his craft, with a back mimicking the poised contour of a crane’s neck. The craftsman begins with a seed. Left to his own devices, he fumbles for a droplet - plain, but brimming with promise. The seed will curl in on itself then germinate slowly, before sprouting into a tender sapling - its infant leaves springy with chlorophyll and dew. The seed is still young, but its stems stretch upwards eagerly and breeds branches swelling with unripe buds.

The bonsai, despite its essence, is an unnatural art. The craftsman plucks from reality’s soil: confining the sombre grandeur of the maple into a delicate prison, framing the world in a shrunken, uncanny interpretation. But despite its size, the maple is honest; with twisting trunks and leaves blemished with soft reds and oranges, it recalls familiar seasons imprinted on the back of our eyes. Is the bonsai not an echo of authenticity? A vessel of fiction? The greenthumbed gardener prunes with calculation, the beaks of his newly sprouted fingertips carefully nip at jutting foliage as he pries through the leafage in search of an ill-fitting frond. He whittles away at the winding branches, coaxing the tree through its evolving variations, each forming a temporary draft. It is his tending and his hours spent carefully cultivating which determines the bonsai’s being. He watches the amateur botanist with slitted, feline pupils – envying their hasty snips, scoffing at their naivety. Watch as that child puddles his pot and sits his elm indoors, overfeeding the pitiful plant! But of course -- the craftsman too may tire, chew on his lip, curse, and twirl his sore

As the horticulturist may teach, the maple is certainly not the only form of bonsai. The broad-leaved boxwood is robust, and longlived, denting history in quick strides as it joins its counterparts on the higher shelves. Whilst the cherry blossom sighs briefly, budding romantically before the warmer months wilt its petals and its scent ghosts the air. The spruce allows itself to be windswept, limbs splitting and needles tumbling in a turbulent design, sending your eyes sweeping down its whorled branches. Enter a nursery and each bonsai will arrange itself proudly, no matter its mess, seducing the horticulturalist with its lilting boughs.

Now listen closely: you mustn’t judge a bonsai by its pot! No matter the pearlescent glaze coating the ceramic, or soft, mottled designs –the terracotta is not the story! The simulation is birthed in the tree itself, and its little branches, flowers, and leaves. Imagine the craftsman’s dropped jaw as you admire a slab of clay over his craft, his lips soured as his skin stretches taut over his clenched knuckles.

You must learn to navigate the bonsai, do not group it with the backyard rose bushes or the dandelions squeezing through the pavement cracks. It’s art, goddammit! •