Series Ichi in Theory

Inspiration

Series Ichi explores the material application of nylon polymer, laser sintering technology, and simplified primitive shapes flexing across pot sizes and uses. This is the first collection of pots I’ve designed and I was intrigued to primarily explore a more minimal aesthetic in both the design and color comparatively to what I’ve seen available from ceramic potters. I guess it’s correct to see this series as an attempt to explore minimalism, functional innovation, new material application, and a restrained color palette equally.

While benchmarking, I did come across some bonsai pots that had been made from 3D printing. Those pots however utilize a cheaper, less desirable form of printing and material than I felt the practice of bonsai deserves. (To be fair, the pots I came across were designed for development use, not show presentation.) The goal of this series is to create a 3D printed pot that’s show-worthy.

After using these pots now for many months, I feel their use is best applied to short-term show pots mostly. This is because unless great care is taken with the composure of the soil and the quality of the water used, the material will develop signs of salts and minerals on the walls. It’s not terribly hard for an experienced practitioner to control these factors and not have this occur. The general user will likely see this develop on the walls of the pot which may be off-putting to them. Another lens is to consider that development interesting and as a factor that makes their specific pot more unique, interweaving polymer and mineral into a new whole. This concept it a bit heady even for the most nuanced bonsai artist, so I’ll leave it there. My recommendation is to use them in shows temporarily, particularly with accent plants or mame.

Form

Laser sintering offers possibilities to achieve very thin walls and features—much thinner than ceramic—down to .02 inches. This possibility informed both the thickness of the walls of the pots (0.05 inches) and the small cleats allowing 1mm wire to be used for anchoring. The parametric-patterned drainage holes could also be made smaller than ceramic can achieve. The small details collectively create a mame bonsai pot with a very different feel, both visually and intuitively, than most other ceramic pots. The thickness of the walls was arrived at by prototyping how thin the material must be to maintain rigid walls at the largest sizes, which occurs in the cascade pots.

The primitive, minimal form of these pots is meant to divert attention more to the material used and the features (parametric drainage holes, cleats, angled interior walls, and this outer walls) rather than the surface characteristics. The pot draws viewers in, hopefully suggesting there’s more to it inside and below than immediately seen.

An outcome of the cleat anchoring system is that no wire if visible on the bottom which is sometimes a problem with small mame ceramic pots, both visually and functionally with stability (an area can become lopsided if wire touches the ground surface). This is also a very small detail but one I appreciate.

Function

The cleats are a novel feature that I have not seen before in bonsai pot design. They are made possible because of the material and process used to manufacture. I suppose cleats could be molded into ceramic pots, however I have not come across it. I enjoy how these reduce material usage needed to anchor trees where typically extra wire is required to form a tension point on the bottom of the pot.

The drainage system inside the pot is designed to reduce the perched water table that can occur. The main angled interior walls and the smaller angled drainage holes work together to achieve this.

Material, Color & Finish

Polyamide 12 is the only material used in this series. Its properties allow it to perform very well in high UV locations and in situations where water and chemicals are present, such as fertilizers. I explored a biopolymer, PA11 made from ethanol (castor oil), which did not perform as well as PA12 with producing small details and came at a higher unit cost which felt prohibitive.

I chose to only create this series in black (dyed) PA12 as an enhancement to the series’ minimal aesthetic. I rarely see pure black bonsai pots. For me, when paired well they recede better and focus attention on the tree. Trees do not contain any black elements and so the viewer does not form a relationally paired understanding of pot and tree that happens with almost all ceramic pots. The pot becomes purely subordinate to the tree in this way.

As mentioned above, unless soil and water purity is controlled, over time the walls will likely begin to show discoloration from accumulated salts and minerals. I do not prefer this, however if someone feels it’s interesting and an enhancement or statement of age, then by all means embrace it. My personal use of these pots will be as show pots, maintaining the pure black aesthetic.

Signature

Series Ichi features the Hito wordmark on the inside of the pots’ inner wall. Due to the large feature area on the bottom of the pots with the parametric drainage patterns, moving it to the inside wall was the next best location. It is seen then only by the user, addressing them personally.