When Christmas is over I unwrap little Japanese treasures inherited from my Oregon grandmother added to over the years by myself whenever I have had the luck to find these tiny objects at antique fairs.
I begin to construct my Japanese toy gardens aided now by my grandson Callum to bring interest to my tables as the house looks so boring once the decorations are gone. Before I explain my toy gardens, I will give you the little history I know about them.
They were introduced to the Western world at the Chicago Worlds Fair in 1893 when Japanese art and design captured the imagination of the 3 visitors to the Japanese Pavilion which of course featured among other treasures gardens and the flora of Japan. I wonder if there were demonstrations of garden art using these dish gardens or perhaps it was a craft like their flower arrangements for homemakers.It is thought the idea might have come from China originally.
My figures are many , animals, temples, bridges, birds, boats, pagodas, teahouses, family dwellings, made in materials ranging from porcelain, pottery, metal, wood, straw etc and range in size from 1/8 inch to about three inches. The trees and bushes come in all sizes beautifully executed in some sort of artificial material all hand made-tiny cherry blossoms, leaves, gnarled tree trunks some on tiny stands but others made to stick upright in the earth used to create the garden base.
First find your container I have collected the perfect shallow dishes and have even made a pottery oval dish in a pottery class. I look for chunks of old wood for mountains and have just brought in a moss-covered twig and scrapped up moss from the patio for the base.
The Japanese are very exact as how they construct their garden. I have a book in old Japanese with photos of exactly how each piece of moss and rock should be placed. I on the other hand get creative. I first dig up damp earth and mould it around the base of the dish creating small hills and flat lanes. I add rocks, sand, moss and lichen and my big chunk of tree trunk becomes a mountain not forgetting tiny agates picked out of Oregon soil by my grandmother. In the middle goes a glass mirror representing water for the boats and sometimes I even have water in a small container so the boats can float. Next step is the fun part where to put the temples, the bridges, the fishermen, the houses, the birds, the carts, the people and so it goes on. There is a tiny wire with 4 tiny men strung along it which goes on the wood chunk as if they are scaling a mountain. Trees are pushed into the wet earth and stay upright once its dried. When my brother and I made them in the 40’s and 50’s my mother used to cut the top of carrots and we pushed them into the water when over the Winter it would grow lovely green stalks. I get great enjoyment just looking at it all through winter marvelling at the craftsmanship of such tiny perfectly made figures all hand painted. Then comes Spring and new life with daffodils and primroses so the dish gardens are deconstructed and carefully put away for another year. Every year I sieve the sand so the agates have survived and go into a brown bottle with a label ‘agates for the Japanese garden’ written by my grandmother. Callum has promised me they will stay in the family and he will construct them every year to remember me.