YouTube: Japanese Art & Culture in Los Angeles
From Dec. 26 – 30, 2019, the Huntington Library and Botanical Gardens near Los Angeles is simultaneously hosting three viewing stone shows: historical show, club show, and special show for children, at Brody Botanical Center in the campus of the Huntington.
https://www.huntington.org/events/viewing-stones-shows
In the exhibition space in the Botanical Center, two large halls are designated for a club show or “Viewing Stone Show: The 30th Anniversary Exhibition of California Aiseki Kai.” The California Aiseki Kai is a club for viewing stone collectors with a few hundred memberships. The Aiseki Kai gathers once a month in Gardena, and hold stone hunting trips twice a year. For more information, visit http://www.aisekikai.com
The room adjacent to a exhibition hall holds a historical exhibition with the title of “From Tiger Strips to Mindless Cloud: Celebrating 50 Years of Stone Appreciation at The Huntington.” The Huntington is one of the oldest public venue which continues to exhibit viewing stones. This historical exhibition is crtated by Jim Greaves of the American Viewing Stone Resource Center in the Huntington Library.
Mr. Greaves explains California stone collectors follow Japanese approach which is called “suiseki” literally means water and stone or water and landscape. Typical Japanese style viewing stones represent distance mountains.
But in California, there are not river stones like Japan. But earlier American collectors in 1960s instead gathered desert stones which are not found in Japan.
As the first time, a special exhibition for children is created in this year. A showcase of animal stones displays stones representing animals such as dolphin, elephant, horse, lion, boar, seal, crab, puffin, and seabirds. In the separated location, a workshop for children is provided.