Land of my Fathers
Keith and Richard's Colliery Scene
Our introduction into the extraordinary world of Bonsai began back on an un-characteristically sunny day in May 2009. Fate's sleight of hand lead us to the Dragon Bonsai Society's Grand Opening day where we found ourselves entering a rustic garden centre with a twist, for within the garden centre we entered the Dragon Bonsai Society's welcoming gates and discovered a plethora of Bonsai in varying stages of development the centre of which was a hive of activity with folk that we initially thought were simply members of the public. How wrong these first impressions were as we were later to learn that we were in the midst of some of the most talented disciplinarians of the Bonsai culture our fair country have ever produced, with the icing on the cake taking the form of a gentleman with a rather silly name called Tony Tickle who wooed us with demonstrations and tales of the joy of Bonsai.
Having had our fancies tickled by Tony, we were then treated to an introductory lecture on the fantastical world of Bonsai by Chris who went on to describe how the society were instilling a Welsh influence into this traditionally oriental art. As an ex-collier, this one phrase “Welsh Influence” immediately triggered the creative side of me and thoughts of what THE defining Welsh image could be. Suitably enticed, Richard and I as sound and lighting specialists, retired to collect our thoughts and to formulate a plan on how we could bring an element of our expertise to the society as a stop gap while we began our journey as fledgling Bonsai enthusiasts.
The concept
Myself being a collier's grandson, a collier's son and an indeed an ex-collier the obvious Welsh influence was going to be coal mining. As a young lad growing up in the heart of the Rhondda valleys, the image which I always recall is that of a series of colliery winding towers standing like great mechanical trees punctuating the haphazardly built streets striking a ghostly silhouette with everything taking the colour of battleship grey, black and white with the only colour being the green of the grass on the mountains and valley walls. This image was always accompanied by an amalgamation of the noise of heavy industry, black birds singing and the local male voice choir's dulcet tones echoing in the distance.
Translating this image into a tangible and real element while complementing the Bonsai discipline was going to be a challenge.
The project
As creative folk Richard and I set about some basic conceptual sketches and drew influence from some old images of early coal Welsh mines. Once the basic layout of the design had been agreed we decided the scene would be set onto a circular base and comprise of six main elements:
- Valley Hill, Chimney Stack
- Winding Tower , Winding House
- Coal Banking, Backdrop
- Most importantly, Two Bonsai specimens
In addition to these main elements, we were going to introduce our supplementary disciplines of audio and lighting.
Materials/Construction
The Valley Hill, Winding House, Chimney Stack and Coal Banking were constructed of medium density fibreboard coated with a fleck texture then spray painted with matt black cellulose. To form the body of the Coal Banking, expending foam was carefully built layer by layer and finally carved into shape with craft knives then spray painted with matt black cellulose.
The Winding Tower was constructed from good old cardboard and cocktail sticks, spray painted bright silver then over sprayed with matt black cellulose to maintain a metallic aura. Winding ropes were formed from 2mm Bonsai training wire. The two specimen trees were then located and the majority of the scene, covered with crushed Welsh anthracite coal. The whole scene was sprayed with a clear lacquer to hold it all rigid and in order to render it splash proof. With the scene completed, moss was laid along the scene floor to represent the green grass of the valley.
Audio and Lighting
Richard recorded three elements of sound:
• some local birds giving a fine rendition of a dawn chorus
• some mechanical sounds from a building site in Cardiff
• The Llanelli Male Voice Choir singing the welsh national anthem.
He then mixed them subtly to form our colliery scene soundtrack. This soundtrack was played at a gentle level from within the coalmine scene and proved very effective, breathing haunting life into the scene.
The lighting is formed using state of the art LED elements set within models of two flocks of black birds providing subtle key lighting to both specimen trees.
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| Specimen Trees The specimen trees are both very early in training. The first is a mother and daughter styled Larch and the second a Literati styled Chinese Elm. We are looking forward to encouraging the trees to become the stars of the scene over the next few seasons. We would both like to thank the society for their encouragement, kind support and for allowing us the latitude to do something so off the wall. If the scene inspires one single person it will have been worth all the effort. |
 At Dragon's late summer show, the scene, (with local male voice choir's dulcet tones echoing in the distance), gets it's first outing. |