Smoke
Ignore-Amus
This question popped up in a recent thread. I really love the question as it allows me to talk about my favorite person. (at least that's what I'm told)
So...allow me to talk about my history a little. The easy answer is I like both styles, but for different reasons. Allow me to elaborate. 35 years ago when I started doing bonsai I bought material that I could afford. I worked on them and tried to improve them but really made very little progress. I just went with the tree and what the tree had to offer. It seemed to style me so to speak. Here are a few bonsai from the archives scanned from photo's. Before digital camera's.
My first bonsai, a cedar
Then I went on to try a few junipers and pines. OMG what was I thinking. This was also one of my first tries at building a bonsai stand.
Ok actually the stand above was a few years later. This stand was one of the first. This was also my first dabble into bonsai pottery.
Around 1994 I met Glenn VanWinkle. A local grower of bonsai material and went by the name of Ripsgreentree many years ago. Some may remember him. Some may also remember our very small disagreements we had. Anyone that thinks I am that much different in person has not met me. Trust me, try to bull shit me and I will call you on it!! We were VERY , very good friends and are to this day.
Well anyway, he sold me a pine tree. Told me it was absolute best material he had ever seen. I worked on it and toyed with it and never really got it to look like anything that met the mental model of what bonsai should look like. What is a mental model? Well a Mental Model is something that jars your brain and causes it to stick in your mental memory bank. It could be a beautiful woman ( you hope to marry), it could be a car you hope to have one day or it may be an image you see on a Bonsai calendar in a nursery. If that bonsai you see has enough wow factor it may stay with you the rest of your life. Subconsciously you may compare every tree you see with the one embedded in your memory bank. Until that day arrives that a new tree becomes your mental model. What anyone else thinks means nothing. And it shouldn't. Appreciating bonsai is a very personal thing and should be treated like art which is also very personal.
I had the pine tree for a few years. Decandle here prune there. Never really making this tree fit what I had in mind. In 1996 I decided to take the plunge and really work in uncharted territory as far as bonsai is concerned. I was going to make this tree into something that I felt looked like a bonsai.
The material
The tree was healthy and I figured now was as good a time as any so I went on to create my first masterpiece. Another Al Keppler stand and pot on this as well.
In looking back on this piece I can see so many mistakes that I made from planting too high to not spending enough time developing and wiring an apex. What it did do for me was make a change in my brain that I could manipulate a tree and I didn't have to settle with what I bought, but could buy for the best attributes and remove the crappy parts and use the best parts. Make the smallest and best tree from the material. (that's a key take away here) Maybe that tall juniper above would have been better had I made a tree out of the lower third and just removed all that crappy long untapering trunk line. Made a canopy from that long bottom left branch, Removed or shortened those long jins and built the tree right on top of the trunk. Reduced the whole tree by two thirds at least? Who knows? I wasn't into shohin then.
Let me answer by breaking this up.
I only speak disparaging about it from a "grower point of view". If I had been a grower of elms and maples twenty years ago I would grow them much like most are grown today. Plant liner, wire and twist it. let it grow. Come back in a few years and prune it back to a new strong leader and grow for taper. Repeat over a few years and develop a really great tapering trunk that lack and character for a maple bonsai.
Well I can only answer in the manner in which I do bonsai. I look for interesting trunks and then purchase them and try to make an acceptable tree. There are some that like to start with cuttings or seedlings, and then their are some that want to buy a semi finished tree and refine it. I don't wish to waste the time waiting for the trunk, but do love the "hanging branches" part of the process. The trunk I purchase will determine what kind of branches I hang.
I love both and have both. A bonsai forum does not really allow one to see into the whole collection one may have at their home. You can only judge me by what I post and allow you to see.
A well executed pine style elm. You make reference to this style quite a bit in several of your posts over numerous trees: elms & tridents especially, often, so I perceive, in a disparaging manner.
So I wanted to ask you if this opinion was wrong and you preferred this style to the classic 'up and out' approach?
We all have a 'default' way of building branches. Would you say that this style is your normal way of hanging a branch structure on a tree or do you prefer others in your collection with a more naturalistic 'freer' approach?
So...allow me to talk about my history a little. The easy answer is I like both styles, but for different reasons. Allow me to elaborate. 35 years ago when I started doing bonsai I bought material that I could afford. I worked on them and tried to improve them but really made very little progress. I just went with the tree and what the tree had to offer. It seemed to style me so to speak. Here are a few bonsai from the archives scanned from photo's. Before digital camera's.
My first bonsai, a cedar
Then I went on to try a few junipers and pines. OMG what was I thinking. This was also one of my first tries at building a bonsai stand.
Ok actually the stand above was a few years later. This stand was one of the first. This was also my first dabble into bonsai pottery.
Around 1994 I met Glenn VanWinkle. A local grower of bonsai material and went by the name of Ripsgreentree many years ago. Some may remember him. Some may also remember our very small disagreements we had. Anyone that thinks I am that much different in person has not met me. Trust me, try to bull shit me and I will call you on it!! We were VERY , very good friends and are to this day.
Well anyway, he sold me a pine tree. Told me it was absolute best material he had ever seen. I worked on it and toyed with it and never really got it to look like anything that met the mental model of what bonsai should look like. What is a mental model? Well a Mental Model is something that jars your brain and causes it to stick in your mental memory bank. It could be a beautiful woman ( you hope to marry), it could be a car you hope to have one day or it may be an image you see on a Bonsai calendar in a nursery. If that bonsai you see has enough wow factor it may stay with you the rest of your life. Subconsciously you may compare every tree you see with the one embedded in your memory bank. Until that day arrives that a new tree becomes your mental model. What anyone else thinks means nothing. And it shouldn't. Appreciating bonsai is a very personal thing and should be treated like art which is also very personal.
I had the pine tree for a few years. Decandle here prune there. Never really making this tree fit what I had in mind. In 1996 I decided to take the plunge and really work in uncharted territory as far as bonsai is concerned. I was going to make this tree into something that I felt looked like a bonsai.
The material
The tree was healthy and I figured now was as good a time as any so I went on to create my first masterpiece. Another Al Keppler stand and pot on this as well.
In looking back on this piece I can see so many mistakes that I made from planting too high to not spending enough time developing and wiring an apex. What it did do for me was make a change in my brain that I could manipulate a tree and I didn't have to settle with what I bought, but could buy for the best attributes and remove the crappy parts and use the best parts. Make the smallest and best tree from the material. (that's a key take away here) Maybe that tall juniper above would have been better had I made a tree out of the lower third and just removed all that crappy long untapering trunk line. Made a canopy from that long bottom left branch, Removed or shortened those long jins and built the tree right on top of the trunk. Reduced the whole tree by two thirds at least? Who knows? I wasn't into shohin then.
Let me answer by breaking this up.
A well executed pine style elm. You make reference to this style quite a bit in several of your posts over numerous trees: elms & tridents especially, often, so I perceive, in a disparaging manner.
I only speak disparaging about it from a "grower point of view". If I had been a grower of elms and maples twenty years ago I would grow them much like most are grown today. Plant liner, wire and twist it. let it grow. Come back in a few years and prune it back to a new strong leader and grow for taper. Repeat over a few years and develop a really great tapering trunk that lack and character for a maple bonsai.
So I wanted to ask you if this opinion was wrong and you preferred this style to the classic 'up and out' approach?
Well I can only answer in the manner in which I do bonsai. I look for interesting trunks and then purchase them and try to make an acceptable tree. There are some that like to start with cuttings or seedlings, and then their are some that want to buy a semi finished tree and refine it. I don't wish to waste the time waiting for the trunk, but do love the "hanging branches" part of the process. The trunk I purchase will determine what kind of branches I hang.
We all have a 'default' way of building branches. Would you say that this style is your normal way of hanging a branch structure on a tree or do you prefer others in your collection with a more naturalistic 'freer' approach?
I love both and have both. A bonsai forum does not really allow one to see into the whole collection one may have at their home. You can only judge me by what I post and allow you to see.
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