Benign Neglect: Historic Japanese American Bonsai by Takeshi Moro
September 16th – October 22nd, 2023
On display at the Military Intelligence Service Historic Learning Center
640 Mason Street, San Francisco, CA 94129
With a Conversation and Book Signing with Dennis Makishima and Kenny Murakami
September 24 at 1:30PM
Open on weekends from 12PM to 5PM
General Admission is $10, Veterans and children under 12 are free
Very limited parking; consider arriving via Muni 30
About the Exhibit
We are very excited to announce the opening of a special photo exhibit by artist and photographer Takeshi Moro at our Military Intelligence Service Historic Learning Center. The exhibit features photographs from Moro’s new book, Benign Neglect: Historic Japanese American Bonsai, published by Sming Sming Books. These photographs will be on view from September 16 to October 22.
Benign Neglect: Historic Japanese American Bonsai features sixty bonsai photographs that were cultivated by Issei (first generation) and Kibei (born in the U.S., educated in Japan, and later returned to the U.S.) Japanese Americans. These bonsai were started after the Japanese Americans returned from WWII American concentration camps.
Dennis Makishima, a bonsai and aesthetic pruning master, inherited the bonsai after the initial creators of the bonsai passed away. He took care of them for over thirty years, trying to honor the style envisioned by the original practitioners. By the time Dennis received these historic bonsai, many were in poor condition. He dealt with dead branches, forms that were far from ideal, and some that were just barely alive. Dennis resuscitated them and called them “old fashion style” in contrast to the “contemporary style,” which is more common today.
Aside from the living descendants of the Issei and Kibei generations, the 60-70-year-old bonsai are likely all that remain alive from that period. In 2022, Dennis retired and donated his entire bonsai collection. The bonsai have likely dispersed all over the state and country, flourishing, just like so many other aspects of Japanese American culture.
About the Artist
Takeshi Moro is Associate Professor of Studio Art at Santa Clara University. For the past decade, he has focused on working with communities and the collaborative process of art making. He is the founder and director of tmoro projects, a 501(c)(3) non-profit community art space in the Bay Area. Moro’s work has been exhibited internationally, including solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago and Serlachius Museot, Finland.
Dennis Makishima (b. 1947) was born and raised in Berkeley, California. A Sansei (third generation Japanese American), his mother and father were Kibei (born in the U.S., educated in Japan, and later returned to the U.S.). A graduate of Berkeley High School, Dennis served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam, and graduated from U.C. Berkeley, where he majored in Political Science.
Dennis is a pioneer of Aesthetic Pruning (ornamental tree pruning up to 15 feet in height) and coined the term and its definitions (ladder was 10 feet tall and he was 5 feet tall). He created the now nationally renowned Aesthetic Pruning Program at Merritt College and has mentored over 100 apprentices during his illustrious career. A revered celebrity practitioner, he has pruned over 10,000 trees, including in San Francisco’s Japanese Tea Garden, a tree that Walt Disney personally planted in Disneyland, and Ruth Bancroft’s Garden. In addition to their much sought-after commissioned work, he and his students continue to volunteer their time pruning trees in Higashi Honganji Buddhist Temple in Berkeley and many other temples with Japanese garden-style trees in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Approximately two years into Dennis’ aesthetic pruning practice he had the good fortune to meet Mas Imazumi, a bonsai master in Northern California. They were both at a family party in Hayward, CA —Mas’ son married into Dennis’ wife’s family. Dennis overheard Mas talking about bonsai and soon after Dennis signed up for Mas’ bonsai class.
In 1990, he was selected to apprentice under Bonsai Master Yasuo Mitsuya 三ツ矢 又生 for 18 months in Toyohashi, Japan. After returning from his training in Japan, Dennis taught aesthetic pruning and bonsai to students, and then travelled the world giving workshops. He was active in the bonsai community and served in leadership roles for the Golden State Bonsai Federation for 20 years, including as President from 2002 to 2004.
Dennis’ works may be found in the prestigious Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino, CA, the Ritsurin Garden in Takamatsu, Japan, and also in the Bonsai Garden at Lake Merritt in Oakland, CA.
Kenny Murakami is a third generation Cal grad with over 50 years in the horticulture industry. Former owner of the Moraga Garden Center, he is now retired and working on his long neglected garden. Go Bears!
