Bonsai tree crafts reflect creation’s awe

Raquel Perez of Sioux Center holds one of her bonsai tree sculptures. The 65-year-old has made more than 100 since she took up the hobby again this past year.

SIOUX CENTER—“En el principio Dios creó …”

Those opening words in Genesis — “In the beginning God created …” — leaves Raquel Perez in awe every time she reads them.

“God did not have to but He chose to create,” said the 65-year-old Sioux Center resident through her husband, Pastor Carlos Perez, as an interpreter.

Because He created, so does she.

Around her home are just a handful of the more than 100 bonsai tree sculptures she’s assembled in the past year. Some of those samples she also brings to the Sioux Center Farmers Market, held 8 a.m.-1 p.m. Wednesdays at the Centre Mall parking lot.

No two of her artificial bonsai trees are alike.

“When God created man, He made everyone different — different skin colors, personalities, all unique — so that gave me the idea that I, too, will not make any the same,” she said. “There are no copies. Everyone is different. Whoever has one has only that one.”

Raquel Perez of Sioux Center holds one of her bonsai tree sculptures. The 65-year-old has made more than 100 since she took up the hobby again this past year.

Perez actually made her first bonsai tree sculpture about 30 years ago while living in her native country of Venezuela.

“A long time ago I like very much the natural bonsai tree; they were very pretty,” she said. “Being it was very expensive to buy a natural bonsai tree and expensive to buy the tools to keep one, I think God put in my mind to make artificial bonsai trees instead.”

Those first creations focused on creating artificial bonsai fruit trees such as a lemon or banana tree.

“Making one became easier to have and maintain,” she said. “I take no course or class on how to make them. I see pictures and think on how to make them and then make them. Indeed God helps me.”

She took a break from making the artificial trees for a number of years. While she moved to Sioux Center in January 2019, she didn’t pick up her hobby again until May 2022.

“I wanted to make a gift for a friend,” she said.

Then in August of last year she wanted to make another gift, something to celebrate a birthday as well as to help welcome the wife of another pastor to her church, Christ Community in Sioux Center.

Raquel Perez of Sioux Center has made more than 100 since she took up the hobby again this past year.

“Then I sent a picture to my daughter of the gift I had finished and asked what she thought, but I made a mistake. I did not send the picture to my daughter but to a friend,” Perez said, with a laugh. “My friend said it was beautiful and she wanted to buy one.”

So Perez started making more.

“I found it a good way to de-stress and I felt God working inside me again,” she said. “I delight in how God made all things beautiful and perfect. Everything God made is good in a great way. He is my creator and now He’s inspiring me to create each tree.”

She does all her work around a 2-by-2-foot table inside her kitchen that has a seat for one. There she surrounds herself with acrylic beads, floral tape, copper wire, silicone glue, nail polish, foe mass, aluminum wire, steel galvanized wire, pots, rocks, wood pieces, paper pliers and wire cutters.

While a couple of sculptures have taken a matter of minutes, most take one to three weeks to complete.

Every bend of a wire, threading of a bead, placement of a rock — every minute spent on her craft — feels like a form of worship to the Creator.

“I have had headaches and purchased new glasses for better seeing. I have lost track of time and forgotten to eat because I’m so thinking about what I am doing. I have had cuts on my hands from the wire. But even in those hurts, I have joy because I am creating,” she said. “I believe God inspires me because I pray to Him when I get started and think on His Word as I work.”

As her sculptures began to fill shelves in her home, Perez began considering ways to share her art with others beyond being given as special gifts to friends and family. She started social media pages under the name Bonsai Creation to help share and sell her creations.

“Because God is our creator and God gives me the inspiration to make every single tree, that is how I chose that name,” she said.

A church friend also encouraged Perez to participate in the local farmers market, which she attends this summer with her husband who helps with the English translation.

“I enjoy meeting the variety of people who come,” she said.

Her next goal is to have an exhibition of her bonsai trees on display for the community to see.

“What I do gives me joy,” she said. “While I see it gives others joy, I do it because I believe it gives God joy because He is inspiring me.”

Business: Bonsai Creation

Owner: Raquel Perez of Sioux Center

Phone: 712-360-2492

Online: On Facebook and Instagram

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