Featured Artists
Marco Invernizzi, born and raised in Milan, Italy, became interested in bonsai at age 15, after watching the movie Karate Kid 3. He studied five years with Salvatore Liporace in Milan and four years with Masahiko Kimura in Inamachi, Japan. 
Marco has won the most prestigious awards in Europe, and his articles have been published in more than 15 different magazines worldwide. In October 2008, Newsweek Japan featured his photograph on the cover and published an interview about his art and training in Japan. He has taught bonsai on five continents and takes care of some of the best bonsai collections in Europe and the USA. Marco is a regular guest on TV and radio shows in Italy and elsewhere. He is also known for creating a new bonsai tool known as the ICHIBAN, which is hand made by Masakuni, for sale all over the world.
Marco has spent most of his life doing bonsai, and has done his best to learn everything he can about the highest quality bonsai in the world. He is proud to be the 20th disciple of Master Masahiko Kimura, and says that every time he works on a tree, he carries on the tradition of the most successful bonsai school in Japan. Marco feels the standard he must offer to all materials he works on, as well to their owners, is “excellence”. He travels the world in search of inspiration. These travels have taught that regardless of a tree’s species, price tag, ownership or location, the most important tool he can offer is “respect”. Marco’s website
Peter Warren first discovered Bonsai in 2002 while in Japan, as he was taking a year out after studying Astrophysics at the University. He began to take a weekly class at the garden of Kunio Kobayashi, one of the most famous Bonsai masters in Japan. He reports being captivated by the beauty and the intrigue of Bonsai and wanted to study more, leading him to become a full time apprentice under Mr. Kobayashi. During his time as an apprentice, Peter learned a wide range of techniques and ways of thinking, regarding not only Bonsai but display, suiseki, pots and life in general. He completed a six year apprenticeship and still regularly returns to Japan to assist at the garden of Mr. Kobayashi and further his education. Since 2007 he has been travelling the world, teaching Bonsai and working with some of the best trees in the US, Europe and Japan.
Peter’s philosophy on Bonsai is ever changing, which is only natural, as Bonsai is an ever changing art form. He says he approaches it from a “tree first, me second” perspective, in that rather than forcing pre-conceived ideas onto the tree, he looks to see what characteristics the tree has and looks to bring them out. This idea also means that the health of the tree is paramount, and he does not mind waiting if it is necessary to do so. Peter tends to favor elegance and grace over power and size. The trees he likes to create are perhaps more classical in style. He does not look to put his stamp on them. Subtle, natural beauty and age are the characteristics he looks for in a tree, along with a lack of ego or contrivance, particularly in its display. More information about Peter’s business is Saruyama Bonsai. More information is available about Peter Warren.
Ted Matson began studying bonsai in 1979 in San Francisco, where he learned the basics under John Boyce. He moved to Los Angeles in 1980, where he became involved in a number of clubs and began a serious pursuit of the art, taking classes from leading masters in Southern California, including Ben Suzuki, Shig and Roy Nagatoshi, Melba Tucker, Warren Hill and John Naka.
Ted started offering classes at his home in Pasadena in 1988. Today he maintains a busy teaching schedule, traveling to nurseries, clubs and study groups across the U.S. Ted has conducted numerous programs and workshops at several bonsai conventions and conferences.
Current memberships include Descanso Bonsai Society (a past president), Shohin Bonsai Society (a past president), the California Bonsai Society and Nampu Kai, a group comprised of John Naka's students. He also is a co-founder of the California Shohin Society (a statewide organization devoted to the study of the smallest category of bonsai). He has served as an elected trustee of the Golden State Bonsai Federation and was the Editor of Golden Statements for three years.
Although Ted is a lover of shohin bonsai, his collection includes trees of all sizes, styles and a range of species. They are known for their proportion, refinement and detail. Perhaps most notable of his bonsai is a 7-tree Foemina juniper grove on a granite slab that was selected for photographic display in the 1999 JAL World Bonsai Contest. In February 2000, the tree was featured in an article in the Bonsai Shunju, the official publication of the Nippon Bonsai Association.
A primary goal in his lectures and demonstrations is to help others improve their own abilities to recognize potential bonsai stock. And, he works to help people understand how to realize that potential through creative design and proper styling techniques.
Scott Elser was drawn down the bonsai path by the collection of his grandfather Mark. After mostly book learning for 10 years, he took his bonsai enthusiasm to another level and began studying with Boon Manakitivipart, becoming one of the first graduates from his three year Intensive course in 2005. Today he continues his bonsai journey with Boon, Michael Hagedorn and Ryan Neil. He maintains a wide interest in bonsai including flowering, fruiting, deciduous, and coniferous species, ranging from shohin to two-man sized trees. In 2008, a Western Hemlock collected and created by Scott won the award for Most Outstanding Conifer at the first ever National Bonsai Show, in Rochester, NY. In 2010 he repeated the same award with a contorted, bunjin Ponderosa Pine.
With a passion for Northwest native trees, Scott draws on his profession as a graphic designer to create natural looking bonsai. Dynamic movement and creative design balanced with solid technique are hallmarks of Scott’s work as he strives to bring out the nature and most interesting characteristics of each tree. He enjoys designing both trees of great power, and those of subtle grace and elegance.
Scott has chaired numerous Bonsai Society of Portland annual shows at the Portland Japanese Garden. He is curating the Conference Bonsai Exhibit.
Guest Artist
Bob Carlson comes to us from San Francisco, California, to share his knowledge of Suiseki and viewing stones. Currently president of the California Suiseki Society, Bob has been avidly hunting and displaying stones in the Japanese aesthetic for 15 years, having been introduced to the art by Sensei Felix Rivera at a demonstration at the Bonsai Society of San Francisco. Bob has collected stones in the breathtaking coastal rivers of Northern California, but often visits the Eel River, world famous for serpentine, jade and jaspers worn by the action of water into sinuous evocative forms.
Bob has exhibited stones for the California Suiseki Society, the Bonsai Society of San Francisco, and the Golden State Bonsai Federation. His museum exhibitions include the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco and the National Bonsai Collection in Washington DC. In 2009 one of Bob’s stones was selected for display in the tokanoma of the National Suiseki Collection, and is now part of the Permanent National Collection. At the 2010 Golden State Bonsai Federation convention Bob was a tanseki (river collecting) leader and moderator of the suiseki panel discussion, and presented informative talk on Suiseki aesthetics for those who participated in the collecting trip using stones they had gathered that day.
Cameo Artists
Dave DeGroot 
- David De Groot has been curator of Weyerhaeuser’s Pacific Rim Bonsai Collection since its creation in 1989. He is an award-winning designer and author, who has been studying and practicing bonsai since 1972. He has studied bonsai in Japan with Yasuo Mitsuya, satsuki with Tatemori Gondo and Hayata Nakayama, and display with Uhaku Sudo. His educational journal articles have been published throughout the U.S. and in eight foreign countries, and his book Basic Bonsai Design is now in its 6th printing. David travels widely to lecture, and has presented programs across the U.S. and in Brazil, Canada, China, England, South Africa, and Venezuela. He is active with several bonsai organizations in the Puget Sound area, and has served two terms on the board of directors of the American Bonsai Society.
Jim Gremel - In 1975 Jim moved to California and embarked on two new 
hobbies: pottery and bonsai. Nine years later he abandoned his 17-year engineering career to become a full time professional potter. He sold his pots to galleries and individuals and made bonsai pots for himself.
Michael Hagedorn - Michael Hagedorn’s love of bonsai has taken on sev
Photo: Greg Brendeneral incarnations, ranging from making bonsai containers for ten years to wiring trees for the Kokufu show. In 2003 Michael ventured to Japan to apprentice under master Shinji Suzuki, where he learned that bonsai is much more than just how we bend a branch. The humorous and sobering stories of those years were documented in his anecdotal book, Post-Dated: The Schooling of an Irreverent Bonsai Monk.
On returning from Japan in 2006 he settled near Portland, Oregon and continues to create, teach, and write about bonsai to share his enthusiasm for this poignant art form. Of artistic and aesthetic concerns, he seeks sensitivity, delicacy, humility, and easy, unforced grace in bonsai work. He sees trees less as canvasses to dictate to as collaborations that allow a slow visual banter between artist and tree. Michael runs the Seasonal program in his studio for bonsai enthusiasts of every level, and is a founding member of the Portland Bonsai Village. His efforts with the Village are focused on promoting excellence and inspiring bonsai enthusiasts nationally and internationally. Visit Michael's web site.
Joe Harris III - A native of Memphis, Joe began his bonsai career at age eleven, eventually working part time at Brussel’s Bonsai Nursery. 
In 1987 he took an opportunity to study four years with Makoto Hashimoto at the Hanuma Nature and Bonsai Park in Kanuma, Japan. In 1990 he returned to Brussel’s where he helped them become the largest importer of bonsai in North America. 1996 brought a move to Iseli Nursery in Boring, Oregon where he started a new division called Matsunami-en which both imports and develops high quality bonsai. Joe now manages both the Maple and Matsunami-en divisions for Iseli.