Me, bonsais & secateurs...

I've been a bonsai enthusiast since I was in first year high school (hah, guess how long that's been!).  Ever since my sister received a bonsai bougainvillea as a gift, I've been amazed at how a shrub or a young sapling can be worked on and turned into a miniature tree.  That was the start of my long relationship with the art of bonsai and its tools, primarily... secateurs.

If the art of painting adds color to a blank canvas, bonsai, like sculpture, is an art that subtracts.  It starts mostly with the use of secateurs, taking away lots of branches, stems and roots to reveal the hidden tree, of which kind, only the bonsai artist can initially see. The basic pruning and shaping is the most drastic step:  you make the biggest decision of selecting what type of bonsai you want to create: formal or informal upright? windswept or cascading?  The choices are many, but once picked, there's no turning back. What you've cut, you can't put back.  Pruning away too much can kill the plant, too little and your effort of creating a miniature tree will be in vain.

Just as in my art, I often look at things quite perceptively (so they say).  Maybe sometimes to a fault (hmmm, that's a good candidate for a future post), but oftentimes useful for me or those around me.  Yup, that's what this blog is going to be (or so I hope) - a secateur.  I'll write my insights on anything and everything, past and present.  I will be your shears to prune away the clutter and maybe reveal the hidden beauty (or ugliness) that everyday stuff are made of. Maybe I can help shape the minds of my young readers (huh? as of this writing, I don't even have any reader!) and tickle those of the not-so-young.  Maybe I can help shape opinions which can help shape the destiny of this country.

 Maybe I can create MY perfect tree... ME.