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Been down this road before, but does not seem to click? So, thought I would post this up, seems relevant...
The Bonsai Fairy does exist! In fact, it could be you and you just haven't come to terms with it! Now, I know what you are thinking... not me? But, it is true!
What am I talking about? I am talking about the fact that for generations upon generations in places like Japan, China, Tiawan, etc. There have been Bonsai Fairies hard at work spending hours upon hours, years upon years working material, often crappy material, making it into the world class material you have come to know as good bonsai.
They have spent decades bending, twisting, carving, creating jins, sharis and uros. Working trunks to the point of the quality one sees, then moving on to branching, building taper, ramification, padding and foliage. Then their is the endless amount of root work and nebari sorting out.
All of this demands time, work... commitment? Yet, with all of this talk about "American Bonsai" as of lately, what I see is not much of this... I see and hear an attitude being passed down the line from those of Professionals to those who have been at the art for some time, to those just starting off... that the answer to obtaining world class trees is to just go out and get the best material possible. Right? I mean this was even reflected in the recent Artisans Cup... trees dragged down from the mountain side, with very little work being done, winning every award.
So, my question is... where does this leave "American Bonsai ", long term? So, now there is a push for folks to try and obtain these type of trees, and soon the "Gold Rush" will be on... and eventually, how ever I don't see it happening anytime soon, the natural resources will dry up and the Gold Rush will sizzle out, just as every Gold Rush before it has done... so what then?
And where does it leave the Bonsai Artist who does not have a backyard Utopia, or an endless wad of cash? How can they compete? I mean for the rest of us... which is the 99 percent of folks doing the Art, when folks like Walter Pall say we need to have paid Talent Scouts combing the world for the best material possible to work on, this is not an option... Right?
So, then why do we tell folks to go get the best possible material they can afford, spend endless amounts of cash, to try and compete in a system where their will always be someone with more cash? This is what I see wrong with American Bonsai.
We are praising folks and putting them on a pedestal, because of the material they have and not the work they have done. No, disrespect to folks like Ryan Neil, or any of those who won at the Artisans Cup... but, I would say it would be safe to say, that most here with any descent understanding of bonsai, if given a world class piece of material, might be able to pull off a pretty awesome tree.
Now, there will be folks who say this is not true... to which I would ask them to be honest with themselves and say, which of the material they have worked on has given them the best finished looking styling results from the get go? The awesome piece of material, or the crappy one they have had to work on over time to develop? I can answer for myself by saying the following... on every nice piece of material I have ever had the pleasure of working on, if I only wired and moved one branch I could post it up and would get praises of how great of a job I did!
But, did I really do a good job? And am I the all amazing artist, or is the piece of material that good? The problem, I see with the logic of obtaining really nice material to work on, or telling folks that they should, especially when starting off, is I don't see folks really learning what it takes to create a nice tree. Right? The material is already nice... so, there is a disconnect. There are not the Bonsai Fairies, spending years and years of on the job training.
Folks starting off, are not learning the grunt work. I see it all the time. I see folks going to shows winning awards for trees they have, yet the shari on the trunk they didn't create, and when push comes to shove one finds out they still don't know the basics of how to create one... someone did it for them at the last workshop they attended. Sad...
So, for me... the rose view of American Bonsai that everyone sees going forward is lacking in basic understandings and is a fatal flaw... we are not really learning what can be done with material. We are not really learning how one can push the material to it's limits... which is what is required of world class trees, because the work is already done. We are not doing the grunt work and being the Bonsai Fairies, in fact we are encouraging those newer or starting off not to do so.
When in all reality, if we were concerned about American Bonsai, we would be telling them the opposite. Right? Take a piece of crappy material, work it... shape it, carve, bend, twist, push the piece of material to it's limits, if the tree dies, start again... do this until you learn how to develop a piece of crap into something of quality, continue until it is the tree winning the awards... then one can then move onto spending tons of money on better material.
I say this from experience... I too had money, went out and spent this money on the better material, of which I didn't know the first thing of what to do with it, and shortly after, realized I was only fooling myself... I had not done the grunt work, I had not been the Bonsai Fairy. I was so concerned about having nice trees, yet in all actuality my trees were not nice. I did fool most though... especially those concerned about the quality of material... so this was nice, however, in most cases it was the work I did on them that was crappy, not the material. For anyone with any actual degree of Bonsai Artistic knowledge, this was so obviously apparent.
Think I am wrong? Check out the next time someone post a piece of nice material, how many likes or praises they get for the material, even though the tree is so far from being anything close to actually being considered a bonsai, and of any quality. Just eye candy... I have said this before, there is no shame in posting up pictures of a crappy piece of material with really good awesome work! In fact I would encourage one does so! And sadly is what I really see lacking in it's entirety here at the Nut... no one posting serious work, and their process of pushing the material. The actual nuts and bolts of doing bonsai. No grunt work, instead we have stupid posts of folks wanting dislike buttons...
On thing I have found funny through doing this grunt work, through me being the Bonsai Fairy... is that in all actuality the doors open up to one who has... folks with any degree of knowledge, understand that if you can polish a turd, and turn a piece of crappy material into a work of art, they want you working on their trees! They understand and see what you are able to do with very little... and understand you will be able to move mountains on good material as well. On the flip side the folks who have nice trees, but know very little knowledge want you working on their trees as well, seeing they never learned how to do what you have learned... So, win...win! And the nice material seems to gravitate to you with little effort and often at greatly reduced prices.
So, sometimes it pays to have been the Bonsai Fairy.
I like to post the work I have done on the material, I am not concerned about the final product... I like to post projects in varying states, and not concerned with whether others like or dislike my work. For me this is not a beauty pageant, or a social club... this is a Forum where folks come to learn, come to exchange ideas, come to show what they are actually doing and the work they are doing, no matter how pretty or ugly the process... this is not, nor should it ever be a place to just come and show finished trees, this is what shows are for. So, it would be nice if perhaps there was more work being shown, less praise of eye candy and more substance, and encouragement of this substance being posted. I feel this might help rid the Tabloid Magazine feel of this site that we currently all are experiencing?
The Bonsai Fairy does exist! In fact, it could be you and you just haven't come to terms with it! Now, I know what you are thinking... not me? But, it is true!
What am I talking about? I am talking about the fact that for generations upon generations in places like Japan, China, Tiawan, etc. There have been Bonsai Fairies hard at work spending hours upon hours, years upon years working material, often crappy material, making it into the world class material you have come to know as good bonsai.
They have spent decades bending, twisting, carving, creating jins, sharis and uros. Working trunks to the point of the quality one sees, then moving on to branching, building taper, ramification, padding and foliage. Then their is the endless amount of root work and nebari sorting out.
All of this demands time, work... commitment? Yet, with all of this talk about "American Bonsai" as of lately, what I see is not much of this... I see and hear an attitude being passed down the line from those of Professionals to those who have been at the art for some time, to those just starting off... that the answer to obtaining world class trees is to just go out and get the best material possible. Right? I mean this was even reflected in the recent Artisans Cup... trees dragged down from the mountain side, with very little work being done, winning every award.
So, my question is... where does this leave "American Bonsai ", long term? So, now there is a push for folks to try and obtain these type of trees, and soon the "Gold Rush" will be on... and eventually, how ever I don't see it happening anytime soon, the natural resources will dry up and the Gold Rush will sizzle out, just as every Gold Rush before it has done... so what then?
And where does it leave the Bonsai Artist who does not have a backyard Utopia, or an endless wad of cash? How can they compete? I mean for the rest of us... which is the 99 percent of folks doing the Art, when folks like Walter Pall say we need to have paid Talent Scouts combing the world for the best material possible to work on, this is not an option... Right?
So, then why do we tell folks to go get the best possible material they can afford, spend endless amounts of cash, to try and compete in a system where their will always be someone with more cash? This is what I see wrong with American Bonsai.
We are praising folks and putting them on a pedestal, because of the material they have and not the work they have done. No, disrespect to folks like Ryan Neil, or any of those who won at the Artisans Cup... but, I would say it would be safe to say, that most here with any descent understanding of bonsai, if given a world class piece of material, might be able to pull off a pretty awesome tree.
Now, there will be folks who say this is not true... to which I would ask them to be honest with themselves and say, which of the material they have worked on has given them the best finished looking styling results from the get go? The awesome piece of material, or the crappy one they have had to work on over time to develop? I can answer for myself by saying the following... on every nice piece of material I have ever had the pleasure of working on, if I only wired and moved one branch I could post it up and would get praises of how great of a job I did!
But, did I really do a good job? And am I the all amazing artist, or is the piece of material that good? The problem, I see with the logic of obtaining really nice material to work on, or telling folks that they should, especially when starting off, is I don't see folks really learning what it takes to create a nice tree. Right? The material is already nice... so, there is a disconnect. There are not the Bonsai Fairies, spending years and years of on the job training.
Folks starting off, are not learning the grunt work. I see it all the time. I see folks going to shows winning awards for trees they have, yet the shari on the trunk they didn't create, and when push comes to shove one finds out they still don't know the basics of how to create one... someone did it for them at the last workshop they attended. Sad...
So, for me... the rose view of American Bonsai that everyone sees going forward is lacking in basic understandings and is a fatal flaw... we are not really learning what can be done with material. We are not really learning how one can push the material to it's limits... which is what is required of world class trees, because the work is already done. We are not doing the grunt work and being the Bonsai Fairies, in fact we are encouraging those newer or starting off not to do so.
When in all reality, if we were concerned about American Bonsai, we would be telling them the opposite. Right? Take a piece of crappy material, work it... shape it, carve, bend, twist, push the piece of material to it's limits, if the tree dies, start again... do this until you learn how to develop a piece of crap into something of quality, continue until it is the tree winning the awards... then one can then move onto spending tons of money on better material.
I say this from experience... I too had money, went out and spent this money on the better material, of which I didn't know the first thing of what to do with it, and shortly after, realized I was only fooling myself... I had not done the grunt work, I had not been the Bonsai Fairy. I was so concerned about having nice trees, yet in all actuality my trees were not nice. I did fool most though... especially those concerned about the quality of material... so this was nice, however, in most cases it was the work I did on them that was crappy, not the material. For anyone with any actual degree of Bonsai Artistic knowledge, this was so obviously apparent.
Think I am wrong? Check out the next time someone post a piece of nice material, how many likes or praises they get for the material, even though the tree is so far from being anything close to actually being considered a bonsai, and of any quality. Just eye candy... I have said this before, there is no shame in posting up pictures of a crappy piece of material with really good awesome work! In fact I would encourage one does so! And sadly is what I really see lacking in it's entirety here at the Nut... no one posting serious work, and their process of pushing the material. The actual nuts and bolts of doing bonsai. No grunt work, instead we have stupid posts of folks wanting dislike buttons...
On thing I have found funny through doing this grunt work, through me being the Bonsai Fairy... is that in all actuality the doors open up to one who has... folks with any degree of knowledge, understand that if you can polish a turd, and turn a piece of crappy material into a work of art, they want you working on their trees! They understand and see what you are able to do with very little... and understand you will be able to move mountains on good material as well. On the flip side the folks who have nice trees, but know very little knowledge want you working on their trees as well, seeing they never learned how to do what you have learned... So, win...win! And the nice material seems to gravitate to you with little effort and often at greatly reduced prices.
So, sometimes it pays to have been the Bonsai Fairy.
I like to post the work I have done on the material, I am not concerned about the final product... I like to post projects in varying states, and not concerned with whether others like or dislike my work. For me this is not a beauty pageant, or a social club... this is a Forum where folks come to learn, come to exchange ideas, come to show what they are actually doing and the work they are doing, no matter how pretty or ugly the process... this is not, nor should it ever be a place to just come and show finished trees, this is what shows are for. So, it would be nice if perhaps there was more work being shown, less praise of eye candy and more substance, and encouragement of this substance being posted. I feel this might help rid the Tabloid Magazine feel of this site that we currently all are experiencing?
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