Andy Smith

Featured Artist - Andy Smith

Andy Smith is the owner of Golden Arrow Bonsai. Andy collects, trains and sells bonsai specimen material from the mountains of the Western United States. Many of these trees are quite ancient and every one is a completely unique specimen trained by the fierce mountain winds, the deep winter snows and the life-giving spring rains.

Through his experiences as a forester, Andy was exposed to many examples of small, naturally twisted, conifer “seedlings” that, upon investigation, proved to be many decades old. Studying these stunted little trees led to an interest in bonsai using these naturally formed pre-bonsai specimen that Andy still collects today.

Andy will be bringing some of these specimen pre-bonsai collected conifers to Indianapolis to provide a rare opportunity for workshop participants to work with some unique bonsai material. Traditional methods of bonsai training cannot duplicate what years of exposure to the elements has done to “style” these trees.

In it's own way, each tree expresses the enduring character of a life lived under difficult circumstances, the triumph of life over the frequent sorrows of existence. They frequently possess beautiful jin and shari, graceful and sinuous trunks and rugged, old bark. Through careful training as bonsai, their deepest beauty may be brought out and they may charm viewers and enchant their caretakers for decades, or even centuries, to come.

Click here to go to the Golden Arrow Bonsai web site.