• Facebook
  • Youtube
  • Instagram
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Mail
Contributor Login
  • 0Shopping Cart
FolkWorks
  • Home
  • Events
  • Features
  • Resources
  • About Us
  • Archives
  • Contact
  • DONATE
  • Search
  • Menu Menu
logo_lookaround

Moveable Mountains

LOOKAROUND / Brooke Alberts

The Huntington Library and Gardens have several marvelous stones displayed in their Japanese Gardens. The ones that fascinated me particularly come from the Eel River in Northern California and are so smooth and pleasant to look upon that they captivated me entirely, and I began to make plans to visit the Eel River solely for the purpose of seeing the parent rock material that these stones sprung from. Well, I haven’t made the journey yet,ut I have decided to put it on my list of Resolutions for the New Year. Fortunately, there is a society called California Aiseki Kai dedicated to the Japanese tradition of suiseki, or the appreciation of stones shaped by natural forces to evoke landscapes. They meet on the fourth Wednesday of each month at the KenNakaokaCommunity Center in Gardena to talk about the structure and aesthetics of these stones and how to best display them. They even organize field trips to go hunting for appropriate stones and have workshops on how to construct wooden bases for their display.

Suiseki is a word made up of “water” and “stone”. This is because they must attain their forms solely by means of natural forces. These stones are collected for the contemplation of the world in miniature. It is a sister art to that of the more widely familiar concept, the cultivation of bonsai. They are often displayed together in a tokonoma, or viewing alcove. Suiseki stones are prized for their beauty (particularly as it evokes comparison with mountain, island and landcape views), patina (the surface luster), harmony and balance. They are generally displayed in bases specially made for each stone, called daiza, or (in the case of the island type of suiseki) trays of sand, or suiban. Part of the aesthetic pleasure in these stones derives from the Zen-derived value of wabi-sabi. It is a way of finding something mysterious or spiritual in the ordinary, and often beauty in decay.

California Aiseki Kai is mounting a show of viewing stones at the Huntington “Friends Hall.” They are also sponsoring a lecture by “the most renowned woman connoisseur of Chinese Scholar’s Stones in 400 years,” Kemin Hu, also at the Huntington. She is the author of the books, The Spirit of Gongshi: Chinese Scholar’s Rocks, Scholar’s Rocks in Ancient China-Suyan Stone Catalogue, and Modern Chinese Scholar’s Rocks- A Guide for Collectors. She will be talking about collection and appreciation of Scholar’s Stones, the philosophy of Scholar’s Stones, judging them, the types of stones selected, and the art of choosing the stand style. You might want to head up to the Huntington anyway, while they’re building their Chinese Garden. The pavilions are not up yet, but the waterways, bridges and foundations are there to be strolled through on the way down to the Japanese Garden (or up to the glasshouse).

While we’re onto Chinese subject matter, the 108th Annual Golden Dragon Parade celebrating Chinese New Year will be held in Chinatown, downtown Los Angeles, Saturday February 24 and will run down North Broadway from 2:00pm to 5:00pm. The festival will go from 10:00am to 8:00pm. This is a good place to get to by Metrolink. Happy Year of the Boar!

If you’re more intrigued by the whale than the boar, the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium and L.A. Chapter of the American Cetacean Society will be hosting their annual Whale Fiesta. There will be a Duct Tape Whale Sculpture Contest, their Great Cetacean Creation Sand Sculpture Contest, and puppet shows, talks by whale experts, music, games, and all sorts of doings.

If Quilting is your delight, or you just like to enjoy them without all of the work, the Road to California Quilt Show will be at the Ontario Convention Center Thursday-Saturday January 18-21, 9:30am-6:00pm and Sunday 10:00am-4:00pm. Admission will be $10.00 for all 4 days.

Viewing Stones Show
December 27-January2 (closed January 1)
10:30am-4:30pm – Friends’ Hall

 

Chinese Scholar’s Rocks lecture by Kemin Hu
Wednesday February 28 7:30pm – Ahmanson Classroom
Huntington Gardens
1151 Oxford Rd., San Marino91108

Presented by California Aiseki Kai
1700 162nd St., Gardena
Ken Nakaoka Community Center, 2nd floor
e-mail: hutch@aisekikai.com
www.aisekikai.com

 

Cabrillo Marine Aquarium Whale Fiesta
3720 Stephen M. White Dr., San Pedro
For more information, call Larry Fukuhara at 310-548-7562
www.cabrilloaq.org


Brooke Alberts is a songwriter and has a Masters degree in Medieval Studies.

Share this entry
  • Share on Facebook
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Pinterest
  • Share on LinkedIn
  • Share by Mail
https://folkworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/logo_lookaround.png 196 188 Steve Shapiro https://folkworks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/FolkWorks-logo-large.png Steve Shapiro2007-01-01 09:00:002020-11-18 10:25:47

Moveable Mountains

All Columns

Featured Columnists

  • Art Podell
  • Chris Wilson
  • David Bragger
  • Lindsey Terrell
  • Roland Sturm
  • Ross Altman

FolkWorks Partners

Join our E-mail Community

As a valued member of our e-mail community, you will receive updates on events, stories, performances and more in our monthly newsletter, along with the occasional special announcement to give you the latest news in folk/roots. We promise your e-mail is safe with us.  We don’t sell or share our database with any third-party vendors.

  • This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.
  • LIKE US ON FACEBOOK
  • JOIN THE FOLKWORKS FACEBOOK GROUP
  • BECOME A FOLKWORKS DONOR
  • ADVERTISE WITH US
YOU TUBE INSTAGRAM TWITTER EMAIL PRIVACY POLICY

All Material Copyright © 2001-2023 FolkWorks. All rights reserved. Website by: Integritive

Scroll to top

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website, analyze site traffic, and show event times in your timezone. By continuing to browse the site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies.

Accept

Cookie and Privacy Settings



How we use cookies

We may request cookies to be set on your device. We use cookies to let us know when you visit our websites, how you interact with us, to enrich your user experience, and to customize your relationship with our website.

Click on the different category headings to find out more. You can also change some of your preferences. Note that blocking some types of cookies may impact your experience on our websites and the services we are able to offer.

Essential Website Cookies

These cookies are strictly necessary to provide you with services available through our website and to use some of its features.

Because these cookies are strictly necessary to deliver the website, refusing them will have impact how our site functions. You always can block or delete cookies by changing your browser settings and force blocking all cookies on this website. But this will always prompt you to accept/refuse cookies when revisiting our site.

We fully respect if you want to refuse cookies but to avoid asking you again and again kindly allow us to store a cookie for that. You are free to opt out any time or opt in for other cookies to get a better experience. If you refuse cookies we will remove all set cookies in our domain.

We provide you with a list of stored cookies on your computer in our domain so you can check what we stored. Due to security reasons we are not able to show or modify cookies from other domains. You can check these in your browser security settings.

Other external services

We also use different external services like Google Webfonts, Google Maps, and external Video providers. Since these providers may collect personal data like your IP address we allow you to block them here. Please be aware that this might heavily reduce the functionality and appearance of our site. Changes will take effect once you reload the page.

Google Webfont Settings:

Google Map Settings:

Google reCaptcha Settings:

Vimeo and Youtube video embeds:

Privacy Policy

You can read about our cookies and privacy settings in detail on our Privacy Policy Page.

Privacy Policy